DD 801 
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5)res5ei) 

Treasures from the 
Saxon State Library 


Edited by 

Margrit B. Krewson 


DD8o| 

D 

Co p'-| X 


The Publishing Office would like to acknowledge the editorial assistance of Allison Blakely, 
Ingrid M. Maar, Lys Ann Shore, and Diane C. Stuart in the development of this catalog. 

Design: Garrubaj Dennis | Konetzka, Washington, DC. 


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Dresden: treasures from the Saxon State Library/edited by Margrit B. Krewson. 
p. cm. 

Catalog and essays to accompany the exhibit: 

Dresden: treasures from the Saxon State Library. 

Includes bibliographical references (p. 43). 

Contents: 

The history of the Saxon State Library/Wolfgang Friihauf — 

Political ambition versus cultural commitment/Reinhardt Eigenwill — 

The Protestant reformation in Saxony/Christian Ziihlke— 

The literature of romanticism in Dresden/Jans-Jurgen Sarfert— 

Music in Saxony/Ortrun Landmann— 

Illustrations. 

isbn 0-8444-0925-1 (acid free paper) 

Copy 3 Z663 .D74 1996 

1. Saxony (Germany) — Civilization—Exhibitions. 

2. Saxony (Germany) — Civilization—Bibliography—Exhibitions. 

3. Sachsische Landesbibliothek (Dresden, Germany)—Exhibitions. 

4. Rare books—Germany — Dresden—Bibliography—Exhibitions. 

5. Manuscripts—Germany — Dresden — Exhibitions. 

6. Music — Germany — Dresden — Bibliography — Exhibitions. 

7. Saxony (Germany) — Civilization — Sources — Exhibitions. 

8. Dresden (Germany) — Civilization — Sources — Exhibitions. 

I. Krewson, Margrit B. (Margrit Beran) 

II. Sachsische Landesbibliothek (Dresden, Germany) 

III. Library of Congress. 

DD801.S347D74 1996 
oi6.943i’8 — dc20 


96-2673 


CIP 



6 . 

Foreword 

James H. Billington 


7 - 

Editors Preface 

Margrit B. Krewson 


Contents 


9 - 

The History of the Saxon State Library 
Wolfgang Fruhauf 


17 - 

Political Ambition versus Cultural Commitment: 
The House of Wettin 
Reinhardt Eigenwill 


2 - 5 - 

The Protestant Reformation in Saxony 
Christian Zuhlke 


33 - 

The Literature of Romanticism in Dresden 
Hans-Jurgen Sarfert 


39 - 

Music in Saxony 

Ortrun Landmann 


43 - 

Bibliography 

Eberhard Stimmel 


48. 

Illustrations 

89. 

Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


Foreword 


The Library of Congress has recently sponsored 
exhibitions highlighting treasures from two of the worlds 
major libraries: the Vatican Library in Rome and the 
Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris. Now, the 
Library is privileged to display treasures from the Saxon 
State Library (Sachsische Landesbibliothek) in 
Dresden, Germany. 

Located on the Elbe River in central Europe, Dresden 
was founded in the thirteenth century. It was the seat of 
the Saxon rulers beginning in the fifteenth century and 
is currently the capital of the German Free State of Saxony. 
Because of its pivotal role in the late Renaissance and 
the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Dresden is known 
as the German Florence or the Florence of the North. 

During the first half of the eighteenth century, under 
the rulers August I (Augustus the Strong) and his son 
August II, Saxony reached the pinnacle of its cultural influ¬ 
ence, manifested in the spectacular baroque architecture 
of the capital city. Dresden became a major European cul¬ 
tural center, where monarchs fostered the arts and made 
significant additions to the city’s art, museum, and library 
collections, which attracted many European travelers. 

One of Dresden’s outstanding cultural institutions 
is the Saxon State Library, which is now celebrating its four 
hundred fortieth anniversary. The Library of Congress 
is pleased to collaborate with the Saxon State Library 
to display a selection of its treasures. These collections were 
unavailable and largely unknown to two generations 
of Americans, since Dresden fell within the former Soviet 
bloc after 1945. The idea for this exhibition originated 
in 1992, shortly after the collapse of communism, when 
I had the opportunity to visit the Saxon State Library. 

In 1978 the National Gallery of Art mounted an 
exhibition, “The Splendor of Dresden,” emphasizing the 


magnificent art treasures of Saxony. The present exhibition 
focuses for the first time on Saxony’s equally rich and 
valuable literary heritage. Displayed here are examples 
from the full range of treasures in rhe Saxon State 
Library—manuscripts, incunabula, books, music manu¬ 
scripts, photographs, maps, and paintings—forming 
an anthology from the High Middle Ages through the 
nineteenth century. 

The exhibition and this accompanying catalog are the 
result of four years of collaboration and planning between 
the Saxon State Library and the Library of Congress. I 
would especially like to acknowledge the efforts of Margrit 
B. Krewson, the Library’s German/Dutch area specialist, 
for her organizational skills as well as her initiative in 
raising the necessary funds to make the exhibition and 
catalog possible. 

The Library of Congress displays these treasures 
from the Saxon State Library as part of its mission 
to make the resources of the world’s more readily known 
to the American public. We are indeed privileged with 
the loan of these treasures from Dresden, most of which 
have never been exhibited outside the Saxon State 
Library. We are pleased to be able thus to call attention 
to the rich European heritage preserved in Dresden. 

James H. Billington 

The Librarian of Congress 


Editor’s Preface 


This catalog, which accompanies the exhibit “Dresden: 
Treasures from the Saxon State Library,” is presented to the 
American public as an introduction to the rich literary, 
musical, and religious history of Dresden collections and 
libraries. A series of essays written by the professional staff 
of the Saxon State Library (Sachsische Landesbibliothek) 
includes a history of the Saxon State Library from its 
beginnings as a court library to its current role as the state 
library of Saxony and one of the preeminent libraries in 
Germany (Wolfgang Frtihauf); an overview of the history 
of Saxony, with particular emphasis on the ruling Wettin 
family and its political and cultural ambitions (Reinhardt 
Eigenwill); an explanation of the origin and role of the 
Protestant Reformation in Saxony (Christian Ziihlke); 
a discussion of the role of Dresden in the development 
of literature during the Romantic period at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century (Hans-Jiirgen Sarfert); and 
an account of the rich musical heritage of Saxony, much 
of which is preserved in the Saxon State Library (Ortrun 
Landmann). 

This exhibit could not have been realized without the 
support of Suzanne Thorin and the scholarly guidance of 
Prosser Gifford. In addition, I would like to acknowledge 
the professional and cooperative spirit of Wolfgang 
Friihauf, Saxon State Library. 

Particularly noteworthy is the scholarly selection 
of objects for this exhibit under the direction of Manfred 
Miihlner, also of the Saxon State Library, with the 
assistance of Valentin Weber and Katrin Nitzschke of 
his staff. Photographic preparation for this catalog 
was done by Regine Richter. 

The essays were translated with the assistance of 
Mary Pajic and edited with the assistance of Lisa M. Hisel. 
My sincere thanks for their generous and able support. 


This catalog also includes forty illustrations chosen 
from the 189 items on display. Matthew Caulfield provided 
invaluable assistance with subject review for the captions, 
which were translated with the assistance of Ronald 
Bachman, Christina Connelly, Christian Hennig and staff, 
Inge Wolfe, and David Kraus, and edited with the able 
assistance of Ursula Lange. I thank them for lending 
their expertise to this project. 

A bibliography of titles in English and German will 
guide those who wish to explore further the themes of 
the catalog and exhibit. The bibliography was compiled 
by Eberhard Stimmel of the Saxon State Library. 

The exhibition and catalog were funded through 
the generous support of the Dresden Flilton Hotel, 
the Donors’ Association for the Promotion of Sciences 
and Humanities in Germany, Kulturstiftung Dresden 
der Dresdner Bank (Dresden Cultural Foundation 
of the Dresdner Bank), Gesellschaft der Freunde und 
Forderer der Sachsischen Landesbibliothek (Friends 
of the Saxon State Library), the Saxon State 
Government, and the Federal Republic of Germany. 

Margrit B. Krewson 
Library of Congress 
April 1996 



Detail, Illustration 6 







Wolfgang Fruhauf 


The History of the Saxon State Library 


The Saxon State Library, the Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 
had its origins in the mid-sixteenth century, during the 
reign of Prince Elector August (ruled 1553-86). At that 
time, Saxony was the second-largest German state after the 
powerful Habsburg Empire, a position resulting primarily 
from the shrewd policies pursued by its princes and 
its great mineral wealth. Prince August, who lacked great 
military ambitions, concentrated his statesmanship on 
promoting the economy—especially mining, trade, agricul¬ 
ture, and forestry—and fostering the arts and sciences. 
This well-educated prince found his learned books becom¬ 
ing more and more indispensable, and in 1556 he began 
to acquire literary works systematically. This was the 
beginning of the Dresden Court Library. 


The Private Library of the Prince Elector of Saxony 

The new collection grew quite rapidly as Prince August 
personally perused the catalogs from the Leipzig book fair, 
went abroad on acquisition trips, and even commissioned 
diplomats to buy books for him. His love of books is 
illustrated not only by his meticulous selections but also 
by the splendid bindings he obtained from the atelier 
of Jakob Krause, the most important German bookbinder 


during the Renaissance. Prince August summoned Krause 
to Dresden from Augsburg, where the bookbinder had 
already demonstrated his mastery of the trade at the court 
of the Fuggers, a wealthy dynasty of merchant princes. 

The bindings Krause made for Prince August, partially 
made of white parchment and pigskin or costly calfskin, 
bore the coat of arms, insignia, and often the portrait 
of this Renaissance prince. 

When Prince August died in 1586, he left behind 
a well-balanced library that included a collection of 
10 . modern and foreign literature. As a collector, he was most 

interested in modern printed works. He also collected 
manuscripts, incunabula, and maps. None of these 
treasures originated from Saxon monasteries, which had 
once been the only centers of book learning in Saxony. 
When the monasteries were dissolved after the introduc¬ 
tion of Protestantism as the official state religion in the 
first half of the sixteenth century, the University of Leipzig 
(founded 1409), was the chief beneficiary, although some 
Saxon private schools also received books from the monas¬ 
teries. Instead, Prince August’s acquisitions were mostly 
purchased. Next to each other on his bookshelves stood 
Catholic and Lutheran writings, although Calvinist books, 
partly because of their authors and partly because of their 
“erroneous doctrines,” were kept elsewhere—just one indi¬ 
cation of the religious troubles of the time. The dismissal 
of the librarian Leonhard, accused of being a Calvinist, 
offers another illustration of religious conflict in Saxony. 

By the end of the sixteenth century, the electors, who 
followed one another in rapid succession, were no longer 
personally selecting books, and the library became the 
responsibility of the senior court chaplains. By 1595 the 
collection numbered 5,668 monographs and 91 maps and 
copper engravings. After this date the library’s growth 
slowed markedly because of the Thirty Years’ War, which 
brought rising prices, misery, and plague. 

During the splendid reign of Johann Georg II (ruled 
1656-80) conditions in the library improved. For the first 
time the electoral household and the court chaplains, as 
well as the elector’s family, had access to the private library, 
though the household and chaplains could use it only 
by permission of the elector. This was the first step toward 
establishment of a public library. 


The Golden Age 

In the eighteenth century the collection flourished, 
becoming the preeminent German library. This golden age 
began with the reign of Prince Friedrich August I (ruled 
1694-1733), who also became king of Poland in 1697 and 
who is generally known as August the Strong. 

The new era had an inauspicious start with the 
burning of the residential palace in Dresden in 1701. 
Because of the damage to the castle, the library and other 
collections had to be moved to new, cramped quarters. 
King August summoned to his court talented architects, 
artists, craftsmen, and inventors, among them the “gold 
maker,” Johann Friedrich Bottger, the creator of European 
porcelain. He also established numerous factories, which 
led to economic growth and made the court at Dresden 
the most splendid in Europe, after Versailles. He further 
expanded the royal collections, which he caused to 
be arranged by subject and made accessible to the public 
for the first time. 

Thanks to increased financial support, the library 
was transformed. Manuscripts, maps, and valuable prints 
from other parts of the collection were added to it, and by 
1727 it received additional space in two wings of the 
Zwinger. This collection of buildings, which is universally 
considered to be the best example of Dresden baroque 
architecture, was conceived as a court festival ground with 
an orangery, fountains, covered walks, and dining rooms. 

The library had received many new acquisitions even 
before its move to the Zwinger, and the cataloging and 
use of the collections had expanded. Saxony was reveling 
in bibliophilia at that time, and literary history and bibli¬ 
ography had become fashionable. Book publishing and 
collecting had reached their zenith. Court and state 
officials rapidly built magnificent book collections, with 
the wealthy bourgeoisie trailing only slightly behind 
the nobility. The Court Library later purchased many 
of these private collections, some of the most important 
of which greatly raised its prestige. For example, in 
1736, under the successor to August the Strong, Prince 
Friedrich August II (ruled 1733-63), the library acquired 
the collection of Johann von Besser (1654-1729), a poet 
and high court official. This collection of 18,000 volumes 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


was especially strong in politics, history, and court 
ceremony and included objets d’art and curiosities, which 
were very popular in private libraries of the era. 

An extremely rare item was added to the library in 
1734. Johann Christian Gotze, a court chaplain who had 
been appointed chief inspector of the Court Library, 
acquired an illustrated manuscript on a trip to Vienna: one 
of only three extant Maya manuscripts. Today the Codex 
Dresdensis, as it is called, is the only one of the three 
being publicly exhibited. 

Large acquisitions, such as the Besser collection, were 
followed by extensive cataloging. Friedrich August II, like 
his father a passionate collector, wanted rapid recataloging 
of the entire collection after he acquired the Besser 
library—a demand that temporarily stopped all lending. 
Card catalogs and manuscript and map inventories were 
all updated. In addition, all illustrations and maps of cities 
and fortresses available in print were cataloged. These 
improvements increased the use of the library, which was 
kept open several hours a day. In 1753 the library began 
keeping a patrons’ ledger, although only distinguished 
names were entered into it. 

The Seven Years’ War (1756-63) once again interrupted 
the growth of the Court Library. After the court and 
government had taken refuge in Warsaw and elsewhere, 
the Prussians in 1760 took Dresden by bombardment, 
destroying large sections of the city. The librarian saved 
the precious book collections by storing them in the 
vaults of the fortress. 

By 1765 there was still no sign of economic recovery. 
Nevertheless, the Court Library in that year purchased 
the collection of Count Heinrich von Biinau (1697-1762), 
which comprised 42,000 volumes and was one of the most 
important scholarly libraries in Germany. Bunau’s passion 
for book collecting had been kindled by working on a 
history of the German empire. The last volumes were never 
completed because of the war and Bunau’s premature 
death. His library was noteworthy for its systematic classifi¬ 
cation and cataloging system, to which Johann Joachim 
Winckelmann, founder of classical archaeology, had 
contributed. The logic of that system is said to have moti¬ 
vated Winckelmann to develop his famous systematization, 
or periodization, of antiquities, which was the hallmark 


of his later magnum opus. It is due to Bunau’s historical 
interests that large numbers of pamphlets from the period 
of the Thirty Years’ War and many funeral orations have 
been preserved as historical sources. 

Four years later, the even more comprehensive 62,000- 
volume library of the late Saxon prime minister, Count 
Heinrich von Briihl (1700-63), was acquired for 50,000 
talers (10,000 more than was paid for Bunau’s). The costly 
purchase underscores the Court Library’s stature as a 
cultural institution, because at that time the treasury was 
very short of funds. If one considers that the priceless and 
coveted painting collection confiscated from the same 
estate had been auctioned off to the Russian tsarina, the 
purchase of Bruhl’s library becomes even more significant. 
Even during a time of poverty, the economic advantages 
expected from promoting scholarship were judged 
sufficient to justify the high cost of this book collection. 

The collections of the two counts, Biinau and Briihl, 
complemented each other nicely. While the scholarly 
Biinau had limited his acquisitions to expensive folios, 
incunabula, manuscripts, or other rare items in support 
of his research, Briihl focused his passion for collecting 
on the arts, attempting to acquire everything that 
was aesthetically pleasing, costly, and rare. His collection 
of old foreign-language novels and plays was said 
to be the most comprehensive in Europe. 

Johann Michael Francke (1717-75), Biinau’s librarian 
and a colleague of Winckelmann, accompanied the collec¬ 
tion and became a staff member of the Court Library, 
where he continued his pioneering work in cataloging. 

He advocated keeping the Biinau library intact and 
separate from the Court Library. However, his advice went 
unheeded, and he was forced to integrate Bunau’s into 
the collections of the Court Library. 

By this time the collections had grown enormously 
in size, and emphasis was now placed on balancing con¬ 
tent, especially in the area of early editions. In 1773 
the Court Library acquired the 1460 Gutenberg edition 
of the Catholicon. Additional efforts resulted in transfers 
of rare items from Saxon private schools that had received 
fragmented collections from monastic libraries. Among 
these books were many fragile early editions, such as 
Fust and Schoffer’s Mainz Psalterium (1457), twenty-six 


The History of the Saxon State Library 


incunabula from Chemnitz, and another twenty-four from 
Schneeberg. Thus, rhe Court Library gradually became 
the state depository. In 1822 the chief librarian, Friedrich 
Adolf Ebert (1791-1834), wrote: “Since the time of Friedrich 
August I the Court Library has been a true state library 
for Saxony and, as such, has preserved many things for the 
Fatherland, about which Saxony would boast abroad.” 

It soon became evident that the number of acquisi¬ 
tions would soon cause the Court Library to outgrow the 
space within the Zwinger. The elaborate Japanese Palace, 
after extensive renovation, became its new home in 1786. 
The newly appointed chief librarian, Johann Christoph 
Adelung (1786-1806), renamed the institution the Electoral 
Public Library (Kurfiirstliche Offentliche Bibliothek), 
and when Saxony became a kingdom in 1806, it became 
the Royal Public Library. Adelung, a scholar and also an 
able administrator, further enhanced the collections by 
acquiring important Old German manuscripts, such as an 
illuminated copy of the Sachsenspiegel (a medieval legal 
code written by Eike von Repgow), and other unique mate¬ 
rials, such as a collection of 3,500 university dissertations. 

Such a collection of literary treasures appealed to intel¬ 
lectuals such as Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, 
Johann Gottfried von Herder, and Heinrich von Kleist, all 
of whom made use of the library. Similarly, many European 
travelers visited the collections in the Japanese Palace, 
as did several rulers, such as Kaiser Leopold II of Austria, 
King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, and Napoleon. 

The significant reduction of the Saxon territory 
decreed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 weakened the 
kingdom both politically and economically, with serious 
consequences for the budget and development of the Royal 
Public Library. By 1834 it was evident that the Royal Public 
Library with its 300,000 volumes had been surpassed 
in size by the Bavarian Court Library, and in contemporary 
literature its collection was inferior to that of the 
University of Gottingen. 

The Library Takes a New Direction 

Although the Dresden library no longer surpassed other 
libraries in expanding its collections, it remained a leader 


in librarianship. Such Dresden chief librarians as Friedrich 
Adolf Ebert (1791-1834) and Ernst Forstemann (1865-87) 
gained national recognition by encouraging bibliography 
and librarianship. As early as 1816 the Royal Public Library 
had become a pioneer of modern library administration, 
when it established one of the first music departments in 
a German library, and by 1835 it installed cases for display¬ 
ing library treasures to the public. A century later the 
space devoted to the display of library treasures had grown 
into a book museum of several rooms. 

By the middle of the nineteenth century, as a result 
of the sharp increase in book production, the library was 
no longer able to collect universally, a practice that it had 
always promoted and defended. Librarian Petzholdt wrote 
in 1843 in the Wegweiser fur Dresdner Bibliotheken — 
probably rhe first library guide in Germany—that one 
of the reasons for the gaps in the Royal Public Library was 
insufficient funds, but that the ultimate cause was the 
existence of specialized libraries, such as the Dresden Poly¬ 
technic Library. The Royal Library limited its acquisitions 
of scientific and technical literature—in spite of the high 
demand for such works—and stopped acquiring medical 
literature altogether, since the Dresden Medical Academy 
Library had taken over responsibility for collecting 
literature in this area. 

With each library assuming responsibility for its 
subject specialty, Forstemann, during his tenure at 
the Royal Public Library, targeted the areas of history and 
its ancillary disciplines, geography, political science, belles 
lettres, and art and music. In history, geography, and local 
history, the systematic acquisition of materials relating 
to Saxony, or Saxonica, brought large numbers of Saxon 
chronicles, family records, and unpublished works 
into the library. Of special significance was the acquisition 
of a collection of 317 original prints from the period of 
the Reformation. In 1880 the Royal Public Library became 
one of the first libraries in Germany to specialize in 
the bibliography of regional studies. 

As chief librarian, Franz Schnorr von Carolsfeld 
(1887-1907) focused on the printed music collection. 
Together with the Saxon Antiquarian Association, 
he perused the holdings of numerous Saxon churches 
and schools to obtain their printed music collections 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


for the Royal Public Library. These complemented the 
royal private music collection of 4,000 volumes and 300 
cases (holding thousands of items)—a singularly complete 
archive of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century court music. 
Together with the liturgical music, the manuscript material 
for more than a thousand operas composed for and/or 
performed at the Dresden court, in addition to autograph 
scores by Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Maria von Weber, 
Richard Wagner, Antonio Vivaldi, and many other famous 
composers, formed a unique music archive that is still 
heavily used by the music industry, for example, in the 
Dresden Music Festival. 

In the early twentieth century the growth of the 
library was disrupted by World War I (1914-18), inflation, 
and the world economic crisis. Book acquisitions declined 
dramatically, and for a time the library was cut off from 
its foreign suppliers. 

After the Weimar Republic was proclaimed in 1919, 
the Royal Public Library and all the former court libraries 
were renamed the Saxon State Library, reflecting the true 
function of the institution as a central scholarly library 
for the state of Saxony. 

Despite poor economic and political conditions, 
library director Martin Bollert (1920-37) continued to 
expand the Saxon State Library. He remodeled the 
Japanese Palace to increase use of the collections. A frugal 
administrator in lean times, Bollert made the Saxon State 
Library a model in Germany of the modern, efficient 
research and general library, at a time when many state 
libraries were undergoing an identity crisis. Until 
World War II, the Saxon State Library ranked third 
among German libraries in the scope and size of its special 
collections and continued to be a leader in the 
field of German librarianship. 

The Nazi Period and Its Aftermath 

National Socialist domination and World War II put an 
end to the progress the Saxon State Library had made 
under Bollert’s direction. Bollert himself was not prepared 
to conform to the requirements of the Nazi regime 
and was sent into early retirement. The few Jewish staff 


members were forced to resign, and Jewish users of the 
library were forced to stay away because the Nuremberg 
Race Laws (1935) prohibited them from entering 
theaters, movies, or libraries. 

Countless books were also victims of Hitler’s bar¬ 
barism, including those of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 
Bertolt Brecht, and Sigmund Freud. Annual lists were 
published of prohibited or undesirable literature to be 
removed from the shelves. None of these titles was 
destroyed at the Saxon State Library, but the use of “unde¬ 
sirable” books was severely restricted. Libraries of exiled 
or expatriate Jewish citizens were considered undesirable 
acquisitions. They were not added to the collection but 
were kept separate from the other books—on “deposit,” 
as it were—until they could be returned to their owners. 

After the war began in 1939 the precious holdings of 
old books were moved to eighteen castles and offices in 
the vicinity of Dresden, where they survived the war safely. 
During the night of 13 February 1945, British Air Force 
squadrons razed the inner city. The Japanese Palace was 
hit hard but only partially destroyed. On 2 March 
American bombers completed the work of destruction. 

The results of both air raids included the death of four 
library employees while on the nightly fire watch, the loss 
of the magnificent Japanese Palace, and the destruction 
of about 200,000 volumes, primarily of twentieth-century 
literature. In addition there was damage to the most pre¬ 
cious parts of the collection, which had been carefully 
stored in a vault considered proof against fire, water, and 
bombs. The violence of the bomb explosions cracked the 
thick walls of the vault, letting water in to do its destruc¬ 
tive work on priceless manuscripts and old editions. 

Even today, the library’s restoration workshop is dealing 
with the water damage to preserve these treasures from 
further disintegration. 

After the war, the undamaged collections stored in 
the basement of the Japanese Palace, together with parts 
of the old collection that had been evacuated and then 
brought back, were housed in new provisional quarters 
on the north side of Dresden, where they have remained 
to this day. 

The Saxon State Library suffered yet another loss 
when Soviet occupation troops confiscated 220,000 printed 


The History of the Saxon State Library 


works dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, 
as well as the manuscript and map collections, and took 
them to the Soviet Union. These special collections had 
remained in storage after evacuation due to lack of 
transportation to or space in the library. 

Despite the obvious need for haste, the cultural 
official in charge of confiscation, who was also the director 
of the Moscow Foreign Literature Library, did not proceed 
haphazardly or indiscriminately. The boxes that were 
carried away contained those parts of the library collection 
that would best complement the holdings of Soviet 
libraries, which had been severely damaged in the war. 
Consequently, the Russians chose not to take the Saxonica 
and Slavic collections of the Saxon State Library. 

In an intergovernmental agreement, the Soviet 
Union and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 
1958 repatriated the manuscript collection and the paint¬ 
ings of the Dresden Gallery of Art. The printed book 
collections, however, remained in the Soviet Union, and 
their location was concealed until the 1980s. The GDR 
halted attempts to uncover the whereabouts of these 
treasures. Only after the events of 1989 in central and 
eastern Europe was an agreement reached for the mutual 
return of all cultural assets. In 1993 materials of the Saxon 
State Library were identified in three large Moscow 
libraries, but none of these items has yet been returned. 

The Library Asserts Itself 

In 1952 the government of the GDR dissolved the individ¬ 
ual states and eliminated the political mandate for state 
libraries. Only the Saxon State Library was able to retain 
its status, to assert its traditions, and to secure new func¬ 
tions within the GDR library system. 

The first tasks facing the Saxon State Library were 
to eliminate all fascist and militaristic literature from 
its holdings and to try to rebuild lost collections. Holdings 
of abandoned or little used libraries throughout the GDR 
were consolidated and added to the Dresden collections. 
The libraries of Saxon teachers’ colleges, gymnasia, societies 
and associations, and cashes, nationalized in the 1946 land 
reform act, brought a wealth of material to the Saxon 


State Library. Although funding was limited, the Saxon 
State Library also acquired new publications, both foreign 
and domestic. 

Although the “Western literature” section had 
special importance, the library could make ir available 
only to special readers, that is, subject specialists. The 
removal of Western periodicals from the reading room 
was mandated in 1980. 

For the Saxon State Library to meet its goal of 
providing broad scholarly literature, it had to acquire 
West German, American, and British books and periodi¬ 
cals, not only East German and Soviet literature. However, 
little hard currency was available to purchase Western 
publications. The Saxon State Library, therefore, developed 
an active international exchange program that allowed 
it to acquire a significant amount of literature from 
the West. Several exchanges took place between the Saxon 
State Library and the Library of Congress, forming the 
basis for the present-day cooperation between the 
two institutions. For example, the Saxon State Library 
provided the Library of Congress with its Saxon 
Bibliography (begun in 1961), the GDR Bibliography 
of Art (1973-88), and the Music Bibliography (1974-89). 
The library’s bibliographical work focused on its 
specialization in art, music, and general and local history. 
This effort resulted in the library’s designation in 
the 1980s as the Central Library for Art and Music in 
the GDR. 

Library director Burghard Burgemeister (1959-90) 
was largely responsible for these accomplishments. 

He was able to protect the Saxon State Library against 
the intervention of state bureaucrats and simultaneously 
expand the special collections. He further transformed 
the institution into one of the most important media 
centers in the German library system by merging the 
Deutsche Fototek and its 1.8 million pictorial documents 
into the library, establishing a Recorded Sound Division 
numbering 150,000 items, and integrating into the 
holdings the world’s largest collection of stenographic 
manuscripts and books. 

When the Free State of Saxony was reestablished in 
1990 as part of German unification, the Saxon State 
Library once again became the state library of Saxony. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


It had always been the central academic library and 
the archive for regional culture in Saxony. 

Nineteen ninety-six is the four hundred fortieth 
anniversary of the founding of the Saxon State Library. 
The library has now been merged with the library 
of Dresden Technical University, which has become 
a comprehensive university with the addition of 
literature and information sciences to its curriculum. 
Combining the two libraries affords an opportunity 
to establish an even more dynamic library of 
international stature. 


The History of the Saxon State Library 













Reinhardt Eigenwill 


Political Ambition versus Cultural 
Commitment: The House of Wettin 


German history is often viewed from a Prussian perspective 
or—at least for the period before the end of the German 
Confederation in 1866—an Austrian perspective. Although 
most of the smaller German states eventually lost their 
political autonomy to the powerful state of Prussia, they 
nevertheless played a major role in Germany’s thousand- 
year history. Among these Saxony stands out. From 
the Middle Ages on it was for centuries an important 
territory, both politically and economically. It also is to this 
day one of the leading cultural centers of Germany. 


The Origins of the House of Wettin 

The House of Wettin dates back to the tenth century. 

Its members were first margraves, then dukes, later electors 
and kings. The Wettins, one of the oldest German families, 
left their mark on the history of Saxony and also on that 
of central Germany, at times playing a significant role in 
the history of the empire. Margrave Konrad the Great 
(d. 1157) solidly established Wettin rule in Meissen and 
the surrounding area during a period when political 
and social conditions allowed the power of the princes 
to become greater than the central power of the king. 
Konrad s position was so secure that before his death he 


bequeathed his territory to his sons without the consent 
of the emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. 

Konrad’s oldest son Otto (d. 1190) inherited the 
Meissen margravate and took advantage of the opportuni¬ 
ties offered by the great economic, social, and political 
upheavals of the High Middle Ages. During the period of 
German colonization eastward, he had large forested areas 
cleared to build settlements and was also instrumental 
in founding the first cities within his margravate: Leipzig 
(founded 1160) and Freiberg (1168). These new cities served 
as centers of trade and commerce, and also of political 
support. The discovery of silver deposits in the eastern part 
of the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) laid the foundation 
for Saxony’s economic power and for the ruler’s designation 
as Otto the Rich. 

In 1162 Otto founded the Altzelle Monastery as the 
private sanctuary of the Wettin margraves, and it long 
remained the cultural center of the margravate of Meissen. 
Here, as in other European monasteries, members of reli¬ 
gious orders produced by hand unsurpassed illuminated 
manuscripts. 

In spite of the rise of the House of Wettin under 
Konrad the Great and Otto the Rich, the balance of power 
between the king and the imperial princes remained fragile 
and the princes’ position far from consolidated. At the 
end of the twelfth century the powerful Hohenstaufen 
emperor Henry VI confiscated the margravate of Meissen, 
threatening the existence of the House of Wettin. Only 
the emperor’s sudden death enabled Margrave Dietrich 
(d. 1221) to win back Meissen for the Wettins. Dietrich 
survived the turmoil surrounding the dispute over the 
throne between the Staufen and Welf dynasties, and 
even strengthened his rule through the founding of new 
cities, such as Dresden. 

In 1247 the power of the House of Wettin reached 
new heights under Margrave Heinrich the Exalted 
(d. 1288), whose inheritance claims and excellent relations 
with the imperial House of Hohenstaufen brought him 
the landgravate of Thiiringen. A few years earlier, the 
Pleissenland region around Altenburg had come into the 
possession of the margravate as the dowry of Margarethe, 
daughter of Emperor Frederick II and the betrothed 
of Heinrich’s son Albrecht. Heinrich also expanded his 


position in the east with the founding of the city of 
Fiirstenberg and the monastery of Neuzelle. He was 
famous among his contemporaries for the splendor of his 
court. His residences were centers of the chivalric 
and courtly culture of the time. The margrave himself 
even composed religious songs. 

The Rise of the Wettins 

The possessor of land stretching from the Werra River 
in the west to the Oder River in the east, Heinrich the 
Illustrious was one of the most important princes of 
the empire, yet he was unable to expand the power 
of the House of Wettin. Heinrich’s grandson, Friedrich 
the Bold—son of Margarethe and grandson of the last 
Hohenstaufen emperor—even made a futile claim to 
the imperial crown. The attempt failed in part because of 
massive resistance by the papacy to any effort to restore 
Hohenstaufen rule and in part because of quarrels within 
the Wettin family. The Wettins, the longest reigning 
dynasty in German history, attempted such power grabs 
only rarely, but in all cases these efforts failed. 

The period following Heinrich’s reign saw additional 
upheaval within the House of Wettin and struggles against 
the renewed strength of the king. At this time the situation 
appeared more threatening for the House of Wettin than 
it had during the reign of Emperor Henry VI. At times 
the Meissen margravate came directly under the rule of the 
king. Friedrich the Bold (d. 1323) reestablished the former 
power of the House of Wettin. In a battle fought near 
Lucka in 1307, the Wettin troops decisively defeated the 
forces of King Albrecht of Habsburg. 

During the fourteenth century the margraves asserted 
themselves against the power politics of Emperor Charles 
IV. The early fifteenth century brought a surprising 
and decisive upswing in the fortunes of the House of 
Wettin. In 1423, after the last of the Ascanian dukes 
of Saxe-Wittenberg had died, Emperor Sigismund 
bequeathed the duchy of Saxony to Friedrich the Warlike 
(d. 1428) for his assistance in the emperor’s fight against 
the Hussites, religious reformers who were followers 
of John Hus. The duchy carried with it electoral status. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


This gift represented a major advance in the stature of 
the margrave, who thereby became one of the seven imper¬ 
ial princes who had the right to elect the German king. 

This development laid the foundation both for the politi¬ 
cally significant role that the Albertine line of the Wettin 
dynasty played from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centu¬ 
ry and for the cultural and economic development of the 
Saxon states from the outset of the sixteenth century. From 
the end of the fifteenth century, the name Saxony was 
gradually applied also to the Meissen margravate and other 
possessions of the House of Wettin. Friedrich, the first 
Wettin Saxon elector, was buried in the funeral chapel 
of Meissen Cathedral, which he founded. 

In 1409 Friedrich and his brother Wilhelm had found¬ 
ed the University of Leipzig, following a dispute between 
the German students and the University of Prague, which 
had denied them the right to vote for a president. The 
students took advantage of the situation to open a new 
university in Leipzig, which received the official sanction 
of the Wettins. 

Land Partition: Setbacks and Growth 

In 1482, during the joint rule of the brothers Ernst and 
Albrecht the Brave, which had begun in 1464, the estates 
of the Wettin dynasty were united. At that time other 
members of the family were archbishops of Mainz and 
Magdeburg. Never before had the House of Wettin 
attained such a position of power. But three years after 
union, Elector Ernst (d. i486) initiated the unfortunate 
partition of the Wettin lands. Elector Ernst received, 
in addition to his electoral area of Wittenberg, the greater 
part of the Thtiringian possessions of the House of Wettin 
and parts of the margravate of Meissen. Albrecht received 
the larger part of the margravate of Meissen and a few 
parts of the Thtiringian possessions of the Wettins. This 
decision ran contrary to the growing tendency to centralize 
economic and political power. Although the land partition 
was not intended to be permanent, nonetheless the 
Ernestine and Albertine lines went their separate ways from 
that time on. The chance for future Wettin dominance 
in the eastern part of Germany had passed. Duke Albrecht 


(d. 1500) prevented further division of Albertine Saxony 
by passing the law of primogeniture in 1499. 

Despite the unfavorable land partition of 1485, the 
Wettin territories in the sixteenth century were among the 
most progressive areas of Germany. Their great economic 
resources were based on the east-west trade of the famous 
Leipzig fair and the renewed mining in the Erzgebirge at 
the end of the fifteenth century. At the same time, the cul¬ 
tural and intellectual forces of humanism, the Renaissance, 
and the Reformation resulted in unexpected economic, 
political, and cultural energy. Under the dynamic leader¬ 
ship of the Albertines—Duke Albrecht the Brave and 
his successors Georg, Moritz, and August—this energy 
found practical application. 

Duke Albrecht commissioned the construction of 
the Gothic Castle in Meissen, considered the first uniquely 
German castle. Duke Georg (d. 1539) concerned himself 
with improving finances and administering his lands, 
despite the political and religious troubles of the time. 

In addition, he began the construction and expansion of 
Dresden, the capital city of Albertine Saxony. He was a 
powerful opponent of the religious views of Martin Luther, 
but his struggle to have the Albertine duchy of Saxony 
retain allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church met with 
failure. He was succeeded by his brother Heinrich the 
Pious (d. 1541), who had already converted to the Lutheran 
faith. With the support of Elector Johann Friedrich the 
Magnanimous (d. 1547), of the Ernestine line, Heinrich 
officially introduced the Reformation into Albertine 
Saxony in July 1539. 

Duke Moritz (d. 1553), son and successor of Heinrich, 
was perhaps the most politically astute member of the 
House of Wettin. He very soon learned to understand and 
anticipate the diplomatic chess moves of Emperor Charles V, 
and he decisively led Albertine Saxony to the forefront 
of the Protestant states. At the same time, he made it 
the most powerful territory of the empire, except for the 
areas ruled by the Habsburgs. In the city of Schmalkalden 
in 1531, several important German princes and cities had 
formed an alliance to defend Protestant interests against 
Emperor Charles V. As a result of the Schmalkaldic War 
of 1547, Duke Moritz was able to wrest more territory from 
his Ernestine relations, along with the actual duchy of 


Political Ambition versus Cultural Commitment: The House of Wettin 


20 . 


Saxony with its electoral status. Even he, however, could 
not completely compensate for the 1485 territorial 
partition. With the 1552 Treaty of Passau he secured the 
“liberty” of the imperial princes and the continuation 
of Protestantism. 

Art and Politics in the Sixteenth Century 

Elector Moritz, although less interested in the arts and 
sciences than his predecessors had been, made significant 
cultural contributions to enhance his political position. 
These included additions to the Dresden Castle, construc¬ 
tion of the Moritzburg hunting castle near Dresden, and 
the expansion of Leipzig University. He also founded three 
Fiirstenschulen (princely schools) in 1543 in Meissen, 
Grimma, and Pforta, and in 1548 he established the Court 
Orchestra, the forerunner of the Dresden State Orchestra. 
The early death at age thirty-two of this outstanding 
Renaissance ruler has led historians to speculate whether, 
had he lived, both Saxon and German history might 
have taken a different course. 

Moritz was succeeded by his brother August (d. 1586), 
who did not pursue a bold foreign policy. Intending to 
maintain a balance to the emperor, he effectively 
renounced an active leadership role among the Protestant 
states and instead focused his efforts on the internal devel¬ 
opment of electoral Saxony. Among his accomplishments 
were stimulation of the economy, improved organization 
of the administrative and judicial systems, better church 
organization, and strong support for the arts and sciences. 
Saxony enjoyed unprecedented prosperity over other 
German territories—an advantage that it was able to main¬ 
tain, at least in part, into the first half of the twentieth 
century. Among August’s many cultural contributions was 
the creation of the Dresden Court Library (today the 
Saxon State Library), based on his private library. In 1560 
he founded an art gallery. Having a strong interest in archi¬ 
tecture, as well as many other aspects of the arts, he invited 
Italian artists to his court. The Dresden armory and the 
Augustusburg and Annaburg castles were tributes to his 
initiative. In the Freiberg princes’ mausoleum, he built an 
impressive tomb to honor his predecessor. Historical 


accounts of the Albertine Wettin dynasty document 
the commitment of these rulers to the enhancement of 
the political, social, and cultural life of their subjects. 

The Political Prospects of Saxony 

Under Elector Christian I (d. 1591) and his chancellor 
Nikolaus Krell, electoral Saxony once again assumed 
an active political role in the empire and beyond. Although 
Krell sought to break the power of the nobility in Saxony 
and to introduce Calvinism, the early death of Christian I 
ended these plans. In foreign politics, Saxony found itself 
again within the Austrian Habsburg sphere. From the 
victory of the nobility and Lutheran orthodoxy arose the 
typical patriarchal and conservative features of the 
administration of Saxony. 

During the devastating Thirty Years’ War, the 
Albertine line of the House of Wettin overestimated its 
influence on the course of political events, changing 
allegiance from the emperor to the Swedes and back again. 
Despite suffering heavy war losses, Saxony was able to 
recover rapidly because of its economic resources. The 
long-term political prospects of Saxony had declined under 
Johann Georg I (d. 1656), even though, as a result of this 
war, he had won both parts of the Lausitz region in 1635. 
With the transfer of the territory of the secularized former 
archbishopric from Magdeburg to Brandenburg, the politi¬ 
cal importance of the dynasty of the Albertine Wettins 
was further reduced. In his will of 1652 Johann Georg I 
further weakened Saxony’s position by creating three sepa¬ 
rate Albertine lines out of his electoral Saxon dynasty 
while upholding the supremacy of the electoral line. The 
three lines of the dukes of Saxony-Merseburg, Saxony- 
Weissenfels, and Saxony-Zeitz died out in the first half 
of the eighteenth century, and their possessions were 
reintegrated into electoral Saxony. 

The Baroque Period in Saxony 

The baroque period began in Saxony with the reign 
of Johann Georg II (d. 1680), who loved splendor and 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


ostentation. Art and culture flourished at his court. After 
1664 the architect Wolf Caspar von Klengel built the first 
opera house in Dresden, and in 1676 the great garden near 
the princely residence was laid out. In 1678 Johann Georg 
II, with the rulers of the three collateral Albertine lines, 
held an “Assembly of Their Highnesses” in Dresden. 

It was a precursor of the great baroque court festivals of 
the eighteenth century. A dynamic economy was largely 
responsible for providing the funds needed for these 
expensive cultural projects. 

Music and theater played a prominent role in the life 
of the court. Italian opera dominated music, and French 
plays captured the theater. Johann Georg III (d. 1691) was 
the first German prince to have Moliere’s plays performed 
at court. The performances were preceded by contests 
and court festivals in the princely residence and at other 
locations in Saxony. 

In the late 1600s the foreign policy of the Albertine 
lines, in accordance with the traditional loyalty to the 
empire, was also oriented toward the House of Habsburg. 
The Albertine Wettins supported the Habsburgs in the 
struggle against the Turks and against the expansionist 
policy of Louis XIV of France. However, Johann Georg II 
was also at times closely allied to France, receiving 
large subsidies for his support from the French 
government. 

With the reign of Elector Friedrich August I (August 
the Strong, d. 1733) began the so-called “Augustan period,” 
which lasted until the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). Under 
his rule the Dresden court was known as one of the most 
splendid in Germany and in all of Europe. Many impor¬ 
tant artists were drawn to Dresden. Architecture, music, 
and the other arts and crafts all flourished under August 
the Strong and his successor Friedrich August II (d. 1763). 
Many architectural masterpieces were constructed in 
Dresden and its environs: the Zwinger, Pillnitz Castle, the 
Frauenkirche, and the Catholic Court Church. Other 
architectural gems, including many palaces of the nobility, 
were built by such prominent architects as Matthaus 
Daniel Poppelmann, Georg Bahr, Gaetano Chiaveri, and 
Johann Christoph Knoffel. The palaces and churches were 
decorated by sculptors such as Balthasar Permoser and 
Lorenzo Matielli. 


In 1721 Elector Friedrich August I founded the 
art gallery’s Grimes Gewolbe (Green Vault) and had it 
embellished with the works of the famous goldsmith 
Melchior Dinglinger. In 1754 he and his successor acquired 
the Raphael Sistine Madonna for the Dresden Royal 
Gallery. As well as a passionate collector of paintings, 
Friedrich August II was also, along with his wife Princess 
Maria Josephine of Habsburg, very interested in music. 
This era, when the Court Orchestra was directed by 
conductor Johann Adolph Hasse, is well known to 
musicologists. 

The Decline of Saxon Power 

The cultural accomplishments of the Augustan period 
would not have been possible without the economic 
strength of the state, clearly demonstrated by the growing 
importance of the Leipzig trade fairs. Leipzig was the 
most important center for trade between central and 
eastern Europe, in particular for the exchange of Saxon 
industrial products and eastern European raw materials, 
such as furs. Together with his strong aesthetic sense, 
August the Strong combined political ambition and a 
remarkable vitality that permitted him to follow his ambi¬ 
tious plans in two directions over the course of his long 
reign. His domestic policy was aimed at crushing the 
power of the nobility, while his foreign policy envisioned 
the establishment of an east-central European empire that 
could claim its rightful place among the great powers 
of Europe. His ascent to the Polish throne in 1697, as 
King August II, was seen as a first step in this direction. 
However, because of his conversion to Catholicism, 
Saxony lost its leading position among the Protestant 
states to Brandenburg-Prussia. August the Strong’s 
ambitions included gaining additional territories of 
the House of Habsburg (whose male line was expected 
to die out at the beginning of the eighteenth century) 
and ultimately acquiring the imperial crown for the 
House of Wettin. 

For all his support of the arts, as collector, patron, and 
even the contributor of ideas to different projects, August 
the Strong never lost sight of his political goals. More than 


Political Ambition versus Cultural Commitment: The House of Wettin 


almost any other German baroque prince, he was aware 
of his standing as a ruler. The extravagant court festivals he 
sponsored also served his political ambitions. For example, 
the famous court festival near the town of Zeithain in 1730 
combined baroque pomp and pageantry with the display 
of military and political might. 

The reign of this unusual member of the House of 
Wettin presents a contradictory picture. In foreign policy, 
he overestimated his power and what could be attained 
by the Albertine branch, especially in competition with the 
22. aspiring state of Brandenburg-Prussia. Although gifted in 

many ways, he lacked the tenacity to concentrate on long- 
range goals. Yet even though August the Strong was largely 
unable to realize his ambitious political goals, his strong 
influence on the cultural history of Saxony remains 
undisputed. 

For his successor, Friedrich August II, an opera 
performance was always more important than the burden¬ 
some daily routine of affairs of state, as Frederick the Great 
noted scornfully in his memoirs. Friedrich August II was 
dominated by his powerful minister Count Heinrich von 
Briihl, and during the War of the Austrian Succession 
(1740-58) he lost the political prestige of Saxony that had 
been won by his father. 

During the Seven Years’ War the situation worsened 
as Saxony became a pawn of the powers involved. 

It quickly recovered from the economic aftermath of the 
war, however, as economic and political reforms were 
enacted. With the gradual establishment of bourgeois 
society, the role of the monarch was weakened even 
further. Upon the death of August II in 1763 the Polish- 
Saxon personal union was dissolved, and gradually 
Saxony exerted less and less influence on the course 
of German history. Like the other smaller German states, 
it was increasingly subject to the hegemony of Prussia 
and Austria. 

During the Napoleonic wars the “Holy Roman 
Empire of the German Nation” collapsed. In the battles of 
October 1806 near Jena and Auerstadt, the Saxon elector’s 
troops initially fought with the Prussians, who were defeat¬ 
ed. Subsequently, the Albertine branch, assuming royal 
status, switched allegiance and became loyal supporters 


of Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 Saxony 
was on the losing side and was forced to surrender more 
than half its territory to Prussia. 

Although its political influence continued to decline, 
the Saxon royal house liked to believe that its cultural 
patronage somewhat balanced these losses. However, the 
first constitution and the ensuing civil reforms of 1831-32 
separated the state and court budgets, further limiting the 
ruler’s activities. The museums and other cultural institu¬ 
tions, while still legally in the possession of the royal house, 
were now subject to state control and were administered 
according to the constitution. 

The reign of King Friedrich August II (d. 1854) 
coincided with the era preceding the bourgeois-democratic 
revolution that culminated in the 1849 uprising at Dresden. 
The revolution was crushed, delaying the collapse of 
the old authoritarian monarchical system. Still, over this 
period a modern bourgeois society gradually 
prevailed. 

In the era of the industrial revolution, which began 
in Germany in Saxony and the Rhineland, the monarchy 
and nobility had less opportunity for their own develop¬ 
ment. King Friedrich August II established the collection 
of copper engravings in Dresden and commissioned build¬ 
ings by Gottfried Semper. King Johann of Saxony 
(d. 1873), a renowned scholar, produced among other 
things a German translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy that 
is still used today. This latter endeavor reflects the private, 
almost intimate quality of Wettin cultural activity 
in the 1860s. 

Saxony, initially aligned with the Austrian monarchy 
during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, became a member 
of the Prussian-led North German Confederation. At the 
end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 it became a state 
within the German Empire founded by Bismarck. The 
November Revolution of 1918, following World War I, 
brought an end to the monarchy in Saxony. King Friedrich 
August III (d. 1932) abdicated on 13 November 1918, 
exclaiming, “Do your own dirty work!” (Macht Euren 
Dreck alleene). 

As an independent state and one of the most econom¬ 
ically well-developed areas of Germany, Saxony played an 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


important part in the history of the Weimar Republic, 
especially in the political and social struggles of that time. 
It survived the devastation of World War II and became 
part of the Soviet Occupation Zone after 1945 and, after 


1949, part of the German Democratic Republic. However, 
the events of 1989 and the unification of Germany in 1990 
made Saxony a free state once again. 


The House of Wettin 


Friedrich II the Gentle 

1428-64 

Ernst 

1464-86 

Albrecht the Brave 

1464-85 

Friedrich the Wise 

1486-1525 

Johann the Constant 

1525-32 

Georg the Bearded 

1500-39 

Heinrich the Pious 

1539-41 

Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous 

1532-47 

Moritz 

1541-47 


1547-53 

August 

vo 

00 

1 

m 

\ss 

Christian I 

1586-91 

Christian II 

I59I-l6lI 

Johann Georg I 

1611-56 

Johann Georg II 

1656-80 

Johann Georg III 

1680-91 

Johann Georg IV 

X69I-94 

Friedrich August I 

1694-1733 

Friedrich August II 

1733-63 

Friedrich Christian 

1763 

Friedrich August III (I) 

1763-1806 


1806-27 

Anton 


Maximilian 

1827-36 

Friedrich August II 

1836-54 

Johann 

1854-73 

Albert 

1873-1902 

Johann 

I902-O4 

Friedrich August III 

1904-18 

Prepared by Eberhard Stimmel 


Elector 

Elector His descendants formed the Ernestinian line. 

Coregent His descendants formed the Albertine line. 

Elector 

Elector 

Duke 

Duke 

Elector 

Duke 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector Became king of Poland in 1697. 

Elector 

Elector 

Elector 

King 

King 

King 

King 

King 

King 

King 


Political Ambition versus Cultural Commitment: The House of Wettin 





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Christian Zuhlke 


The Protestant Reformation in Saxony 


The Protestant Reformation began in Saxony and 
constitutes one of Saxony’s most significant contributions 
to world history. Arising from the Reformation were 
the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican churches, as well 
as other religious movements, such as the Puritans and 
Quakers, all of which profoundly influenced the political, 
economic, and cultural life of Europe and 
North America. 

The German Reformation is primarily associated 
with Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther’s opposition to 
the Catholic Church’s practice of selling indulgences 
developed into a powerful mass movement. Fearing divine 
punishment, the faithful purchased indulgences to ensure 
their absolution for past and future sins. The Catholic 
Church used the proceeds to finance the sumptuous 
lifestyle of the pope and archbishops, as well as to subsidize 
construction of new churches, monasteries, and abbeys. 
Luther’s opposition to indulgences might have remained 
simply a part of theological history if not for the more 
general social, economic, and political problems of 
the time, which had developed into a dangerous powder 
keg waiting to be ignited. 

Luther was not the first theologian to express 
reformist ideas. However, he gave new life to such views 
and thus became the principal force behind the 


Reformation, a religious and social movement whose 
criticism of spiritual decay in the Roman Catholic Church 
and the papacy was rooted in the High Middle Ages. 

On 31 October 1517 Luther, an Augustinian monk and 
professor of biblical studies at the Saxon University of 
Wittenberg, sent to his church superiors letters written in 
Latin in which he enclosed “95 Theses on the Power of 
Indulgences.” He intended to challenge others to a theo¬ 
logical debate, or scholarly disputation—a commonplace 
activity among scholars at that time. Luther also sent the 
theses to his friends in Nuremberg. The legend that Luther 
personally nailed the theses to the door of Wittenberg 
Castle Church is based on an account written in 1546 by 
Philipp Melanchthon (1497—1560), who was not even 
present in Wittenberg in 1517. 

The immediate motivation behind the “95 Theses” 
was the appearance in Saxony of one of the most persistent 
sellers of indulgences, the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel 
(c. 1465-1519), who had a large following, even in Saxony 
where the trade in indulgences was unlawful. Pope Julius II 
(1503—13) had just issued an indulgence for the construc¬ 
tion of St. Peter’s Church in Rome. The papal commission¬ 
er of indulgences in Germany was one of Luther’s superi¬ 
ors, Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (1490-1545), who was 
deeply in debt as a result of the 29,000 gulden he had sent 
to Rome to obtain various positions. The Fugger banking 
house in Augsburg had advanced him the money in the 
belief that his position as commissioner of indulgences 
would enable him to settle his debts. (The commissioner 
was allowed to keep half the amount acquired from the 
sale of indulgences.) Tetzel, who was always accompanied 
by an official of the Fuggers, sought to increase his 
proceeds with sayings like this: “As soon as the money falls 
into the box, souls will jump from the fires of Hell into 
Heaven.” Claims such as this were too much for Luther 
to accept. 

Luther’s view of indulgences grew out of his so-called 
“tower experience”: the basic theological concepts of God’s 
justice he had acquired while working, in his study in the 
Wittenberg monastery tower, on an exegesis of the biblical 
passage Romans 1:17. Luther believed that all efforts to 
earn God’s grace through good works (indulgences, fasting, 
pilgrimages, entry into a monastery, the financing of 


masses, and so forth) are of no value. God does not require 
righteousness but rather grants it in faith: He is a merciful 
God, not a punishing God. Salvation (Luther’s question: 
“How do I obtain God’s grace?”) is attainable only through 
faith (sola fide). The person who believes, “be he a sinner 
or a righteous man,” is forgiven through grace and not 
because he has somehow “earned” salvation. In this view, 
the buying and selling of indulgences made the forgiveness 
of sin “a holy commodity” to be obtained with money. 

Luther’s new theological statement was developed step 
by step between 1513 and 1518 as preparation for his lectures 
on the Psalms and on Saint Paul’s letters to the Romans, 
Galatians, and Hebrews. It was the real message of the 
Reformation. When he sent out his theses, however, Luther 
did not foresee any reformation of the Church. He intend¬ 
ed only to oppose the abusive practice of the sale of indul¬ 
gences by subordinate church offices. 

In 1517 the “95 Theses” were printed in Latin in a 
one-page format in Leipzig and Nuremberg, and a short 
time later they were printed in Basel in book form. 

German translations quickly followed. Duke Georg of 
Saxony (Georg the Bearded, d. 1539) allowed them to be 
circulated to warn ofTetzel’s deception and to stop the 
illegal trade in indulgences. 

A literary war of unprecedented dimensions followed. 
Luther’s simple, colloquial writing style appealed to the 
people. The printing and book trade gave Luther access 
to the reading public and an unexpectedly wide audience 
and influence. In the next two years 38 manuscripts by 
Luther were printed in 113 editions in Leipzig alone—40 
percent of all his writings printed before 1519—an indica¬ 
tion of the city’s importance in the publishing trade. 

After 1520 Wittenberg became the preferred place of publi¬ 
cation for reformist writings. The pope tried to silence 
Luther through his superiors, but their attempts failed, 
and charges of heresy were levied against him. Luther’s 
sovereign, Elector Friedrich the Wise (d. 1525), managed to 
arrange for Luther to answer the charges before the papal 
legate Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio from Gaeta, 
1469-1534) at the next imperial Diet in Augsburg, rather 
than in Rome. The hearing in October 1518 produced no 
result, nor did a conversation in January 1519 with 
the papal diplomat Karl von Miltitz (1490-1529) from 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


Dresden. Luther pointed out that he could not be forced 
to recant if he had not committed an error. 

A debate in Leipzig from 27 June to 16 July 1519 was 
more productive and enabled Luther to advance his theo¬ 
logical concepts. It also brought him new followers, as well 
as opponents, and divided the two Saxon states along 
denominational lines. Duke Georg was Luther’s nemesis, 
but out of a desire to shock his theologians “out of their 
peace and idleness,” he ordered the Theological Faculty in 
Leipzig to open its premises to the debate. The event took 
place at the Pleissenburg, because the university auditori¬ 
um could not accommodate everyone who wished to 
attend. During the first week Andreas Bodenstein, called 
Karlstadt (1486-1541), and Johann Eck (1486-1543) argued 
on the topic of free will. In the second week, Luther and 
Eck debated the question of the authority of the pope and 
the Church councils. Pressed by Eck, Luther rejected the 
concept of the pope’s primacy and his indispensability 
for granting salvation; this was not God’s but man’s will. 
Moreover, he held that the pope and the councils could err, 
and that the Council of Constance had condemned state¬ 
ments by Jan Hus that were Christian and based on the 
Gospels. With this, Eck had what he needed: Luther was 
shown to be a “Saxon Hus” and a heretic. Duke Georg was 
painfully aware that he himself was the grandson of the 
“Hussite heretic king” Georg von Podiebrad (1420—71). 

Whether intentionally or by accident, the argument 
over indulgences developed into a dispute over the founda¬ 
tions of the Roman Catholic Church. This in turn won 
Luther additional followers, above all from the circle 
of humanists, including his most important ally, Philipp 
Melanchthon. Other south German supporters of Luther 
included Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523) and Willibald 
Pirckheimer (1470-1530), as well as Pirckheimer’s friend, 
the painter Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528). They supported 
Luther in letters and pamphlets. The Saxon State Library 
in Dresden has a collection of these Reformation 
pamphlets. 

Luther was an extremely prolific writer. In his words, 

“a rapid hand and perfect memory” were his assets. In 1520, 
in addition to other texts, he published the three principal 
Reformation theses: The Address to the Christian Nobility of 
the German Nation, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 


and The Freedom of the Christian Man. These works were 
the foundation of the Reformation and carried the message 
of the movement into the country. The first 4,000 copies 
of the Address to the Christian Nobility sold out 
in a few days. 

While Luther was writing his major theses, further 
measures were planned against him in Rome. With Eck’s 
cooperation, a papal bull, warning of excommunication, 
was issued in June 1520, but Eck encountered difficulties in 
distributing the document in Germany. Nor was Friedrich 
the Wise prepared to permit distribution of the publica¬ 
tion. By December 1520 Luther burned the papal bull 
before the Elster Gate in Wittenberg. Rome responded to 
this challenge by excommunicating Luther in January 1521. 

According to law, excommunication from the Catholic 
Church was to be followed by a similar imperial ban. 
Elector Friedrich won agreement from the newly elected 
emperor Charles V that Luther should not be condemned 
without a hearing. In April 1521 Luther had to appear in 
Worms before the Diet, consisting of the emperor, the 
electors, and representatives of other states. In the Edict 
of Worms (May 1521) the Diet declared an imperial ban 
on Luther and his followers, ordered their writings to be 
burned, and placed all books appearing in Germany under 
church censorship. To protect him, Friedrich the Wise 
hid Luther in Wartburg Castle near Eisenach. 

It is still unclear why Friedrich the Wise, who did 
not endorse the Reformation and who saw Luther only at 
the Diet of Worms, protected him, thus encouraging the 
spread of the Reformation. It may be that Friedrich was 
motivated by a strong sense of justice. Perhaps the prestige 
of Wittenberg University, which he had founded in 1502, 
also played a role. When Luther taught there, enrollment 
increased (students even came from neighboring coun¬ 
tries), while enrollment at its rival university in Leipzig 
declined. The pope tolerated Friedrich’s attitude in view 
of the upcoming election of a new emperor. 

While in hiding, Luther translated the New Testament 
into German, based on the Greek edition that Erasmus 
of Rotterdam (1466/69-1536) had published and translated 
into Latin. Luther completed the work in eleven weeks, 
and it appeared with a preface in September 1522 
(the September Testament) in Wittenberg without naming 


The Protestant Reformation in Saxony 


either the translator or the printer. It was so successful that 
another edition was issued in December (the December 
Testament). Translation of the Old Testament followed in 
installments. By the time the first complete German-lan¬ 
guage Bible was published in 1534, the New Testament had 
reached a record printing: eighty-seven High German 
editions, nineteen Low German editions, three translations 
in Dutch, one in Danish, and one in Swedish. Luther’s 
translation of the Bible set unprecedented standards for 
accuracy, greatly influencing the development of the new 
High German language. It also set standards for translating 
the Bible into different national languages, especially in 
states that endorsed the Reformation. 

After Luther’s Wartburg period, the Reformation 
developed its own momentum. In Wittenberg, which 
became the center of the movement, and in other cities, 
his followers began to apply his teachings to church life. 
Following the impressive Leipzig debate, individual Saxon 
priests had begun to preach evangelisch (according to 
the Gospels) in Leipzig, Dobeln, Grimma, the Lausitz area, 
Zittau, Gorlitz, and Bautzen. Everywhere monks and nuns 
began to leave the monasteries, and priests took marriage 
vows long before Luther himself laid aside his monk’s robe 
(16 October 1524) and married (13 June 1525). In January 
1522 the German Augustinian congregation was dissolved 
in Wittenberg. In 1524 Duke Georg had to close the 
Celestine monastery on the Konigstein when only the 
proctor remained. The situation was similar for the monas¬ 
teries of other church orders. Many monks became pastors 
and devoted themselves to proclaiming the Reformation. 

In many cities councilmen urged the appointment 
of a Reform pastor, while others asked Luther to name 
a suitable candidate. 

In Wittenberg Karlstadt, Justus Jonas (1493-1555), and 
Gabriel Zwilling (d. 1558) actively opposed indulgences 
and masses for the dead, and Karlstadt preached in secular 
dress on Christmas Day 1521 and administered the Lord’s 
supper with bread and wine. These were revolutionary 
actions. In December, in the midst of this iconoclasm, the 
“Zwickau Prophets” arrived, with whom Thomas Miintzer 
(i489?-i525) was closely associated. Given their name by 
Luther, the “Zwickau Prophets” included the clothmakers 
Nikolaus Stovel and Thomas Drechsel, and former 


Wittenberg student Markus Thomas. Strongly pro- 
Reformation, they were also dreamers. 

Luther was summoned and returned to Wittenberg 
on 6 March 1522. With his famous sermon on Invocavit 
Sunday, he tried to stop the iconoclastic excesses. He 
preached cautious reforms following sufficient spiritual 
preparation and protection of the weak. Everything 
associated with the idea of sacrifice was stricken from the 
mass, the confession, and also the private masses. In 1523 
Luther’s Baptismal Booklet, which made it possible for 
the sacrament of baptism to be conducted in the German 
language, appeared. This was followed in 1526 by his 
German Mass and Order of Worship, and in 1529 by the 
Booklet on the Marriage Ceremony. 

With the elimination of priests to perform the mass, 
the new order set free all those funds that had been donat¬ 
ed to subsidize worship services. The “Leisnig Collection 
Box Ruling” of 1523 (Leisnig is located between Leipzig and 
Dresden) was an example for other evangelical church 
organizations. This income for the parish and the church 
would go into a common collection box, which supported 
the pastor, sexton, schoolmaster, the poor, and orphans. 
Luther’s Ruling on the Common Collection Box pointed 
out that the collection boxes should not be used to support 
beggar monks or pilgrims, as was sanctioned by church 
rules. His rules laid the foundation for the evangelical 
charitable organizations of today. 

The Reformation was not a united movement. 
Through Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) and John Calvin 
(1509-64), it soon developed other centers and diversified. 
At the beginning of the Reformation, the “Zwickau 
Prophets” acquired a certain significance for Saxony, as 
did the German Peasants’ War (1524—25). Although Luther’s 
opponents liked to portray the situation differently, the 
peasant revolts were part of the social struggles of the late 
Middle Ages, which the Reformation accelerated but did 
not cause. 

In regard to Karlstadt, it is unclear whether he was 
already a fanatic and iconoclast in his Wittenberg period 
or whether he became more consistent once reforms were 
introduced. Valentin Weigel (1533-88) belonged to the next 
generation of reformers. While conscientiously carrying 
out his pastoral duties in the small Saxon town of 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


Zschopau, he wrote works that he concealed in his desk 
or entrusted to a few friends. His writings, along with the 
ideas of the German mystic and natural philosopher 
Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 
1493/94-1541), stand in a direct line from the radical wing 
of the Reformation to Jakob Bohme (1575-1624). Weigel’s 
manuscripts, published after his death, created a great 
sensation in the seventeenth century. 

After 1524 Germany began to divide into two denomi¬ 
national camps, and within Saxony there was a strict sepa¬ 
ration for the next fifteen years. Duke Georg continued to 
persecute every reformist movement or action in Albertine 
Saxony and ordered the expulsion of those of evangelical 
persuasion in a mandate of 1532, implemented especially in 
Leipzig. He encouraged his court chaplains, Hieronymus 
Emser (1477-1527) and Johannes Cochlaeus (1479-1552), 
to write against Luther and often did so himself to “root 
out the cursed Lutheran sects.” Luther responded to all 
his opponents. 

At the end of his life Duke Georg became a tragic 
figure. He had to accept the fact that the Reformation had 
made inroads within his state: after 1532 in the Freiberg 
domain of his brother Heinrich the Pious (1473-1541) and 
after 1537 in the Rochlitz area ruled by his widowed daugh¬ 
ter-in-law Elisabeth (1502-57). Georg’s efforts to defend his 
state against the Reformation after his death failed. His 
two sons died before their father. Later, Georg tried in his 
will to force his brother Heinrich, who was next in line, 
to the Catholic side, but negotiations with the Saxon 
estates over the will dragged on, and the issue was never 
resolved. In the spring of 1539 Heinrich the Pious assumed 
power and, at the funeral of his brother, made clear which 
denominational faith he intended to introduce into 
Albertine Saxony. On 6 July 1539 the first evangelical 
worship service was held in the Dresden Kreuzkirche. 

In electoral (Ernestine) Saxony, after the turbulent 
early years, construction was begun on an evangelical state 
church under Friedrich the Wise’s successors, his brother 
Johann the Constant (d. 1532) and Johann’s son Johann 
Friedrich the Magnanimous (d. 1554). The duchy of 
Prussia, the first evangelical state—founded in 1525 by 
Albrecht of Brandenburg (1490-1568), grand master of 
the Teutonic Order—served as a model. The ruler was 


requested by Luther to maintain order in the church. In 
turn, from 1526 to 1530 electoral Saxony’s church and 
school inspection, based on Melanchthon’s 1528 Instruction 
for Inspectors, served as an example for other evangelical ter¬ 
ritories. The inspectors were to evaluate the life and teach¬ 
ings of the pastor and see that the nobility and the cities 
did not enrich themselves on church property. The inspec¬ 
tions showed a shocking ignorance of religious matters 
among the pastors and members of the congregations. In 
1529 Luther felt compelled to draw up the Large Catechism 
for pastors and the Small Catechism for the father of each 
household, both to be learned by heart. In the capital city 
of each district, pastors were installed as superintendents 
to oversee religious matters. Consistories were formed (the 
first in Wittenberg in 1539) to handle matters of ecclesiasti¬ 
cal jurisdiction, such as matrimonial cases or complaints 
made against pastors. After 1539 the reorganization of the 
church hierarchy in Albertine Saxony proceeded simultane¬ 
ously. For the use of the inspectors, Justus Jonas devised 
the “Heinrich Liturgy” (used in Duke Heinrich’s territory), 
which became the official order of service. 

Meanwhile, matters had come to a head in regard to 
the political situation of the empire. At the Diets of Speyer 
in 1526 and 1529, the Catholic princes renewed their deci¬ 
sion to implement the Edict of Worms. The evangelical 
minority responded in 1529 with a formal protest, from 
which the name Protestants derives. The Diet of Augsburg 
in 1530 was a milestone in the development of the evangeli¬ 
cal creed. At the request of the elector, Melanchthon 
worked out a position paper, The Augsburg Confession 
(Confessio Augustana), the first compilation of evangelical 
precepts. Thereupon, Eck, on orders of the emperor, 
produced a rebuttal (Confutatio), and the emperor regarded 
the case as settled. Because he had been pronounced an 
outlaw, Luther could not take part in the Augsburg 
proceedings. He watched events from the Coburg Castle 
and ridiculed the “parliament of crows and jackdaws,” 
as he called it. Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession seemed 
too moderate for him, and he remarked, “I cannot tread 
so quietly and gently.” In 1537 Luther strengthened the 
contents of the Augsburg Confession by issuing the 
Schmalkald Articles, which became a statement of faith 
of the Lutheran Church. 


The Protestant Reformation in Saxony 


The Diet concluded without an agreement but with 
the emperor’s threat to wage war against the evangelical 
princes if they did not submit. To protect themselves 
against this danger, they formed the Schmalkaldic League 
as a war alliance in February 1531. This league and the addi¬ 
tional threat of danger from the Turks forced the emperor 
to agree to a truce. In the Nuremberg Truce of 1532 the 
Protestants were tacitly tolerated until a future council 
could be called. The council met again in 1545 in Trent, 
a town in the far south of the empire. It was a gathering 
of Catholics only, since the German Protestants refused to 
attend. Luther did not live to see the ensuing setbacks for 
the Reformation. He died on 18 February 1546 in Eisleben. 

Because a solution could not be found through the 
Council of Trent, the emperor chose to enforce his power 
by waging war against the Protestant rebel princes (the 
Schmalkaldic War, 1546-47). During the war Duke Moritz 
of Saxony (d. 1553) came under a cloud. Although he firmly 
supported the development of the Reformation in 
Albertine Saxony, he was lured by the diplomacy of the 
Habsburgs and the promise of gaining electoral status and 
Ernestine Saxon territory. This promise, and the chance to 
reverse the 1485 partition of Saxony, prompted him to fight 
on the side of the emperor. Following the defeat of the 
Schmalkaldic League at the battle of Miihlberg in April 
1547, the imperial Diet in 1548 issued the Augsburg 
Interim, which permitted the Protestants only two conces¬ 
sions: lay participation in the offering of communion and 
the marriage of priests. Otherwise, it required a return to 
the old doctrines and rites. Duke Moritz, because he had 
supported the Catholic emperor and won electoral status 
as a result, was scorned by the people as the “Judas of 
Meissen.” He came under further pressure and had to 
implement the Augsburg Interim as imperial law even in 
his own territory. Playing for time, he asked his consulting 
theologians, particularly Melanchthon, to work out a less 
strict version, the Leipzig Articles. The articles conceded 
to the Catholic rites adiaphora (unimportant matters), 
such as the structure of the worship service, but held firm 
to the basic articles of evangelical doctrine, such as 
justification by faith. 

The Leipzig Articles were never implemented. Instead, 
there began one of many internal disputes among the 


Protestants, which continued for several decades and 
reached a critical point in Saxony with crypto-Calvinism 
and the fall of the chancellor Nikolaus Krell (155CP-1601). 
This time, the Gnesio Lutherans, the “true Lutherans”— 
that is, Lutheran theologians such as Nikolaus von 
Amsdorf (1483-1565), Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-75), 
and their followers—criticized the “Philippists” (Philipp 
Melanchthon and his followers) for being too ready to 
compromise and rejected the Leipzig Articles as a “Leipzig 
Interim.” The attacks they made in their campaign were 
clearly directed against Duke Moritz. 

For personal reasons, but largely because of the repres¬ 
sive power and religious policy of the emperor, Duke 
Moritz changed sides, joined the north German evangelical 
princes (who were opposed to the emperor for the same 
reasons), and became their leader and the savior of 
Protestantism. Strengthened by a treaty with the French 
King Henry II (1519-59), Moritz took the field with the 
evangelical princes in a surprise attack against the emperor, 
who, however, escaped. On 2 August 1552 the evangelical 
princes formulated the Treaty of Passau, which led to 
the Religious Peace of Augsburg on 25 September 1555. 

The Peace of Augsburg recognized “those associated with 
the Augsburg Confession” and allowed them their 
religious independence. 

The Reformation came to an end in Saxony with the 
General Articles issued in 1557 by Elector August I (d. 1586, 
brother and successor of Moritz). Along with Heinrich’s 
Liturgy, the General Articles represent the first binding 
church legislation. 

The Reformation, yielding to political pressure, relied 
on the holders of territorial power who had made it possi¬ 
ble and assured its survival. As a result, there were as many 
legally independent state churches as there were political 
territories. The Religious Peace of Augsburg permitted only 
the sovereign rulers to select the religious denomination 
of their territory, under the principle cuius regio, eius religio. 
This religious decision by the prince was, therefore, of vital 
importance to his subjects. The state rulers and also the 
emperor, despite their apparent piety, used religion as a 
means to achieve their political goals. Famous examples of 
this were Henry IV’s (1553-1610) conversion to Catholicism 
at the end of the century to become King of France 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


(“Paris is worth a mass”), and the conversion of the Saxon 
elector August the Strong (Friedrich August I, d. 1733) 
to acquire the Polish crown. By then, subjects no longer 
had to change their religious affiliation to that of 
the ruler. Thus, Saxony has remained largely Lutheran 
to this day. 

The Protestant states received permanent benefits 
in the improvement of their educational systems. Through 
their writings, Luther and Melanchthon appealed to 
the authorities to establish schools, including schools for 
girls. Melanchthon’s reorganization of the University of 
Wittenberg was an example for all other Protestant univer¬ 
sities, as were his widely circulated instruction books. 

The Latin schools were reformed and were closely connect¬ 
ed with evangelical and humanist education. Melanchthon 
became the Praeceptor Germaniae. In 1543 Saxony 
established the basis for its own educational tradition 
with Elector Moritz’s order to form the princely schools 
(Furstenschulen) of St. Afra in Meissen, St. Marien in 
Pforta (Schulpforta near Naumburg), and St. Augustin in 
Grimma. These university-preparatory schools were 


attended by children of the princes and the nobility, as well 
as young people from various cities. They also provided 
scholarships for poor students. 

The favorite art form of Protestantism was music. 
Luther himself favored a “singing church” and considered 
choral singing as important to the church experience as 
the sermon and communion. In his words, “To a good 
sermon belongs a good song.” Where there was a shortage 
of German songs, Luther would compose his own, and 
today the evangelical church can thank him for some 
of its most beautiful hymns. 

The Reformation divided Christendom into different 
denominations, with the Catholic Church no longer repre¬ 
senting all Christians. The privileges and responsibilities 
of the individual in Reformation theology extended to, and 
caused changes in, the secular world of commerce, educa¬ 
tion, law, and personal conduct. Society was not complete¬ 
ly secularized; belief in an active and omnipresent God 
remained central to late medieval and early Renaissance 
life. However, now the nature of that God and humanity’s 
relation to him was open to multiple interpretations. 


The Protestant Reformation in Saxony 



Detail, II 




Hans-Jurgen Sarfert 


The Literature of Romanticism 
in Dresden 


In European intellectual history, Romanticism was 
a direct reaction to the prescribed rules of reason of the 
Enlightenment. It was also a call for intellectual renewal 
that had evolved from the changes brought by the French 
Revolution that began in 1789. Romanticism was a 
group phenomenon, involving friendships among writers 
and literary circles. Intellectuals combined the demand 
for freedom with the elimination of the current literary 
standard and strengthened the imagination through 
sensitive expression. Romantic authors and artists wanted 
to revitalize what they thought of as the universal value 
concepts of the Middle Ages in Germany. Romanticism 
developed into a literary movement centered in the cities 
of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Jena and was also referred 
to in regional terms, as Rhine, Munich, or Swabian 
Romanticism. 


Dresden as a Source of Artistic Inspiration 

For a brief period Dresden was one of the centers 
of Romanticism. Because of the beauty of its countryside, 
Dresden has always been a place of inspiration for artists 
and musicians. The “Romantic School” was born 
in Dresden during the summer of 1798, when a group 


of Romantics brought recognition and attention to the 
Sistine Madonna, which the Dresden Royal Gallery had 
owned since 1754. This was an altar painting from the 
church of the San Sisto Benedictine Monastery in 
Piacenza, Italy, which had been donated to the monastery 
by Pope Julius II. It was acquired for the Saxon capital 
city by Elector Friedrich August II for 20,000 gold ducats 
(approximately us$200,000 today). This painting by 
Raphael Santi (1483-1520) became a world-famous work 
of art. The American poet Henry Miles (1824—71) wrote 
in his poem “San Sisto” that the Madonna had made 
Dresden a “Holy City.” 

The young men and women who came to Dresden 
during the summer of 1798 to widen their horizons 
were unusually gifted and sensitive individuals. They 
were the group of Romantics from Jena, who had 
first gathered at the Pillnitz home of the Saxon privy 
councilor Ludwig Emanuel Ernst and his wife Charlotte. 
This group included five prominent authors: Friedrich 
Schlegel, August Wilhelm and Caroline Schlegel, 

Friedrich von Hardenberg, and Friedrich Wilhelm 
Joseph Schelling. 

Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) was already familiar 
with this center of artistic riches through his stay in 
Dresden from January 1794 to the summer of 1796. He 
had devoted this period to an exhaustive study of the 
history of classical literature, the theory of literature, and 
the philosophy of history. Schlegel always emphasized 
the profound influence these two and a half years in 
Dresden had had on his literary life. 

His brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845), 
professor of literature and philology and inspired translator 
of Shakespeare’s plays, had also decided to move to 
Dresden in August 1796, although he feared that he would 
be subject to the city’s conservatism. He was accompanied 
by his wife, Caroline (1763-1809), one of the most interest¬ 
ing women of the Romantic period and an accomplished 
letter writer. 

Von Hardenberg (1772-1801) of nearby Freiberg is 
perhaps best known as Novalis (cultivator of new land), 
as he called himself. This profound lyric poet of great 
melodic sadness was also a systematic and mystical thinker. 
Schelling (1775-1854) became a professor in Jena at age 


twenty-three and had already published basic works in 
natural philosophy. 

These five authors met in Dresden, the “Florence 
of the North,” on 25-26 August 1798, to view and discuss 
works in the classical collection of the Japanese Palace 
(once the location of what is now the Saxon State Library), 
where torchlights illuminated the stone contours of the 
building. In the art gallery of the Johanneum, a three-story 
Renaissance building constructed in 1586 at the Neuen 
Markt, they studied the gestures and expressions portrayed 
in the fabled paintings of Claude Lorrain, Jacob van 
Ruisdael, Hans Holbein, Salvator Rosa, Correggio 
(Antonio Allegri), and Giorgione. Kneeling before the 
Sistine Madonna, the five authors poetically consecrated 
it as “the acme of human creativity.” 

In their discussions, they emphasized authentic 
experience and the early Romantic world of contempla¬ 
tion. The discussions culminated in the poetic-philosophic 
dialogue Die Gemahlde (The Paintings), written by August 
Wilhelm and Caroline Schlegel and published the follow¬ 
ing year in the journal Athenaeum. Die Gemahlde was 
the basic document and Athenaeum the most important 
publication for formulating the theory of early romanti¬ 
cism. The theory grew out of that overwhelming 
experience in the Dresden gallery. 

Influence on American and British Literary History 

The influence of the Schlegel brothers on American literary 
history has been documented by Ernst Behler, the 
German-American specialist in German Romanticism at 
the University of Washington. As one of the leading schol¬ 
ars of their manuscripts, he published The Writings of the 
Schlegel Brothers in 1983. August Wilhelm’s literary history 
was translated into English in 1815. The first American 
edition appeared in 1833. It is known to have influenced 
the literature of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe 
(1809-49). As early as 1812 the Philadelphia journal Port 
Folio referred to Schlegel’s Vienna lectures “On Dramatic 
Art and Literature” (which had been published 
in Heidelberg in 1809-11). An English translation of 
Friedrich’s History of Old and New Literature (Vienna, 1815), 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


which advanced new theories in German literary criticism, 
appeared in Philadelphia in 1818. By 1833 scholarly discus¬ 
sions of the Schlegel brothers appeared frequently in liter¬ 
ary journals, particularly in the American Monthly Review. 
They were respected, cited, and credited with stimulating 
interest in aesthetic concepts in American literary criticism. 

Strong ties also existed between the German and 
English Romanticists. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), the 
great English historian and writer, valued German culture 
and translated the works of many German writers for 
English-speaking audiences. In 1829 he wrote a thoughtful 
and stimulating essay on Novalis, which made a lasting 
impression on Anglo-American audiences. Before the com¬ 
plete translation was published in 1842, The New Yorker 
published in 1839, on * ts title P a g e ’ a translation of the 
“Weinlied” from Novalis’s novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen. 
The Americans Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82) 
and Poe showed a strong interest in Novalis’s writing, 
establishing an awareness of him among a small literary 
public. Finally, the “Blaue Blume” became a popular 
symbol of the Romantic concept of happiness in Henry 
van Dyke’s (1852-1933) Blue Flower { 1902), a paraphrased 
version of the first dream in Heinrich von Ofterdingen. 

Romantics in the Library 

During the eighteenth century, the Court Library in 
Dresden developed into a renowned European cultural 
institution. The Romantic writers eagerly consulted its 
valuable resources during their visits to Dresden. The 
lending records from 1797 to 1803 show that the Schlegel 
brothers visited the library on 3 July 1798 and that 
Friedrich borrowed the Gottingische Museum, while his 
brother delved into Anderson’s Collections of English Poets 
(London, 1795). Several days later Friedrich, who was 
studying the works of Petrarch, borrowed the Obras Livicas 
by another humanist, the Spaniard Diego Hurtado de 
Mendoza (1503-75). 

On 10 August 1799 Novalis visited the library for the 
first time. He made frequent visits thereafter in 1800 and 
1801, at least nine in all, revealing his interest in the Greek 
tragedians Aeschylus and Sophocles; the theosophical 


writings of the Silesian mystic Jakob Bohme (1575-1624), 
whose search for God moved him deeply; and the poems 
of the prolific Meistersinger Hans Sachs (1494-1576). On 20 
January 1801, deathly ill, the twenty-nine-year-old Novalis 
left Dresden, but four days later he returned Tiberius 
Cavallo’s Treatment of the Theoretical and Practical 
Knowledge of Electricity (Leipzig, 1783) to the library, an 
indication of his interest in the natural sciences. 

Another regular user of the library was Ludwig Tieck 
(1773-1853), a Romantic writer with a highly developed 
sense of fantasy, who moved easily and skillfully in all 
literary genres. He lived in Dresden from 1801 to 1803 
and later from 1819 to 1841 as councilor and drama critic. 
He became a central figure in the literary life of the 
city. During his first stay in Dresden, Tieck made no 
fewer than twenty-five visits to the library. 

Influence of Dresden on Intellectuals 

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) was also living in Dresden. 
A writer of international literary standing, he did not 
fit the aesthetic system of classical harmony fostered by 
Goethe and Schiller. He saw the entanglements and fatal¬ 
ism of human existence in a puzzling world. Kleist’s short 
life was dominated by this view of reality in which 
he sought in vain the realm of the ideal. Yet in Dresden, 
where he found friends and understanding, he spent a 
happy period from 31 August 1807 to 29 April 1809. Earlier, 
in 1801, he had written from Paris: “What’s happening 
in my dear Dresden?” When he came to Dresden, he met 
a remarkable group of prolific intellectuals. Adam Muller 
(1779—1829), an expert in many subjects, was giving 
brilliant lectures on German science and literature. He 
had written the introduction to Kleist’s Amphitryon. 

Many unpublished manuscripts were circulated among 
this group. The journal Phoebus, founded by Muller on 17 
December 1807, called for “popularizing all art works of 
the most contradictory forms and as varied as they can be,” 
to stimulate the advancement of ideas. The intention 
was to test and promote directly and radically the early 
Romantic ideal of unity from multiplicity, as in the synthe¬ 
sizing of opposing texts. After its initial success, the journal 


The Literature of Romanticism in Dresden 


ceased publication in February 1809 after only nine issues, 
because of strong competition and a shortage of funds. 
Many of the great literary men of the day, from Goethe to 
Christoph Martin Wieland, refused to contribute, causing 
a decline in circulation. Nevertheless, Phoebus was the most 
important literary journal focusing upon the aesthetic 
debate to be published in Dresden. Its particular value 
lay in Kleist’s original contributions. Phoebus published the 
powerful Robert-Guiskard Fragment, the draft of a play 
that Kleist intended as the greatest drama of all time. 

Other important drafts of his pioneering creations are 
known largely through this publication. 

Although he worked in Dessau, Wilhelm Muller 
(1794-1827) frequently visited Dresden. This Romantic 
folk writer composed simple, lyrical poems that won wide 
acceptance, such as “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore,” “Das 
Wandern ist des Mullers Lust,” and “Ich hort ein Bachlein 
rauschen.” His lyrical song cycles, such as Die schone 
Miillerin and Die Winterreise, became the greatest songs 
of composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828), the last master 
of the Viennese classical school. These unexcelled composi¬ 
tions embraced the content and mood of Muller’s poems. 

In a letter of 4 April 1824, Muller wrote about a trip 
to Dresden, “This visit has already become an annual 
necessity for me.” Two weeks later, he wrote further, “I 
cannot stand to be away from Dresden longer than a year.” 
He loved the cultural life of this city, where he had friends 
such as Tieck and the composer Carl Maria von Weber 
(1786-1826), a master of Romantic music. Muller dedicat¬ 
ed the second collection of his Waldhorn songs to Weber. 
The founders of the Dresden Choral Society honored this 
young poet. During his numerous visits to the city, he 
always used the resources of the Royal Public Library, espe¬ 
cially while working on his encyclopedic fourteen-volume 
Library of Seventeenth-century German Writers (1822). 

At the library Muller had close contacts with Friedrich 
Adolf Ebert (1791-1834), who since 1814 had been heavily 


involved in efforts to develop the theoretical and scientific 
basis of library science. His work Die Bildung des 
Bibliothekars (1820) is still considered one of the standard 
authorities in the history of library science. In 1823 
when Ebert accepted the offer to go to Wolfenbiittel to 
take charge of the library of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 
(1729-81), the highly respected philosopher of the 
Enlightenment, Muller would have liked to take his place 
in Dresden and wrote, “May my deepest wish come true.” 
His wish did come true: Dresden became Mullers second 
home and played a crucial role in his development as 
a poet. Today the International Wilhelm Muller Society 
preserves his work. 

In late autumn of 1828 Friedrich Schlegel came to 
Dresden for the last time. While there, he gave public lec¬ 
tures and wrote a summary of his philosophy of life. From 
25 March to 31 May he had lectured in Vienna on the 
philosophy of life and delivered eighteen lectures on the 
philosophy of history. These were challenging confronta¬ 
tions with the theories of the classical philosopher Georg 
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). On 5 December 1828 
Schlegel began a series of lectures at the Hotel de Pologne 
in Dresden, where Adam Muller had also lectured. His 
topic was the philosophy of language and words. He was 
working on a universal system of Christian philosophy 
when, on 11 January 1829, he suffered a heart attack while 
reading the manuscript of his next lecture. He died within 
a few hours. The Dresden manuscripts were sent to 
Vienna on orders of the Austrian chancellor Metternich 
( I 773 _I 859)> who had known and liked Schlegel. Schlegel 
was buried in the Catholic cemetery in Dresden. Upon 
receiving news of his death, Adam Muller, coeditor 
of Phoebus, suffered a stroke and died. 

The young Friedrich Schlegel had once said in a 
moment of enthusiasm, “My feelings of youth were first 
awakened in beautiful Dresden, where I first saw true 
works of art.” In the end he returned to the city forever. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 














Detail, Illustration 39 




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Ortrun Landmann 


Music in Saxony 


The history of music in Saxony is among the richest and 
most dynamic in Germany, perhaps in Europe. Particularly 
noteworthy are Dresden’s 770-year-old Kreuzchor, origi¬ 
nally founded to train choristers for church altar services, 
and Leipzig’s 740-year-old Thomanerchor, as well as 
the Staatskapelle of Dresden and the Leipzig Gewandhaus 
Orchestra. Pounded in 1548 by Elector Moritz to 
accompany church services, the Staatskapelle is the oldest 
continually existing orchestra of court origin and is 
considered one of the leading European orchestras today. 
The Gewandhaus Orchestra, founded in 1743, is the oldest 
continually existing civic orchestra in Europe. The 
international acclaim these institutions have received is 
the result of the strong support of music both within 
and outside the church throughout Saxony and of a rich 
tradition of instrument making, especially in the 
Vogtland region of southwestern Saxony. 


Music and the Schools 

For centuries music education was emphasized in both the 
Latin schools and the parochial schools of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church. In addition to the large city schools 
of Dresden, Leipzig, Zwickau, Freiberg, and other cities, 


there were three so-called Fiirstenschulen (princely schools), 
Meissen, Grimma, and Pforta, which were established after 
the Reformation by the Saxon electors on confiscated 
monastic estates. Pforta became widely known through the 
publication of the motet collection, Florilegium Portense. 
Part i of the collection appeared in 1618, part 2 in 1621; 
numerous copies of both parts are still in existence today, 
for example, in the New York Public Library and the 
Library of Congress. Original music manuscripts of the 
St. Augustin School in Grimma, including several codices 
of musical compositions from the St. Afra School in 
Meissen, have been preserved and are today part of the 
holdings of the Saxon State Library. 

Just as the Florilegium Portense indicates the broad 
scope of the music repertoire in the city and princely 
schools, the Grimma Collection demonstrates how impor¬ 
tant the music centers of Leipzig and Dresden became for 
these schools. Today, musicologists recognize how benefi¬ 
cial these manuscripts were for the musical development 
of the St. Thomas Church before Bach’s arrival in Leipzig 
in 1723. Without this collection of manuscripts, many 
of the earlier works of composers such as Johann 
Rosenmiiller, Johann David Heinichen, and Georg Philipp 
Telemann, who lived temporarily in Leipzig, would not 
have survived. 

Music in Leipzig 

In Leipzig, musical life for centuries was centered in the 
city’s churches and university. Liturgical music reached 
its height in the work and influence of Johann Sebastian 
Bach, cantor of St. Thomas Church and director of music 
for Leipzig from 1723 to 1750. After his appointment 
as cantor, Bach composed five complete cycles of cantatas 
for the church calendar, containing approximately sixty 
cantatas each, for a total of almost three hundred sacred 
works, a repertoire unparalleled in Leipzig’s musical 
history. 

Leipzig was also known for its Collegium Musicum, 
founded by Telemann and directed by Bach in 1729. 

Such groups were voluntary associations of professional 
musicians and university students that gave weekly public 


concerts. In this way, many an aspiring lawyer or theolo¬ 
gian discovered during his studies at Leipzig that his real 
vocation was music. A seventeenth-century example is 
Heinrich Schiitz. Eighteenth-century examples include 
Johann David Heinichen, who later became 
Hofkapellmeister of the Dresden Hofkapelle; Johann 
Friedrich Fasch, later Hofkapellmeister in Zerbst; Georg 
Philipp Telemann, who became a conductor in Frankfurt 
am Main and Hamburg; and the Dresden concert-master 
Johann Georg Pisendel. Several of Bach’s successors as 
music director at the St. Thomas Church were also gradu¬ 
ates of law and theology from Leipzig University. Among 
the nineteenth-century graduates were the composers 
Heinrich Marschner and Carl Gottlieb Reiftiger, who 
were later in Dresden, as was Robert Schumann. 

Music in Dresden 

In the capital city of Dresden, the Hofkapelle had such 
high standing that the other musical groups in Saxony 
could not seriously compete with it, although some of 
them were also excellent. When the Saxon electors were 
invited to the Reichstag in Berlin, they took along their 
celebrated Hofkapelle. It participated in festivals, 
weddings, and state occasions, events that were accompa¬ 
nied by sports tournaments, lavish opera productions, 
and processions in fancy costumes. 

The Hofkapelle also played regularly at the court 
worship services. It had been founded in 1548 as the earliest 
Lutheran (court) ensemble, under the leadership of church 
music director and Hofkapellmeister Johann Walter. When 
Elector Friedrich August I (August the Strong, d. 1733) 
converted to Catholicism in 1697 in order to become king 
of Poland, some members left the Hofkapelle for religious 
reasons, since the ensemble would now be integrated into 
the Catholic worship services. At the same time the old 
organizational form of the Hofkapelle that had developed 
under Schiitz was changed to a more modern form. 
Obsolete instruments gave way to new ones that are still 
in use today. 

Essential to this early development was the interna¬ 
tional character of the Hofkapelle. From its beginning, it 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


had drawn conductors, as well as members, from Italy, 
the Netherlands, and England. When the electors traveled 
to other countries, such as Italy or France, they adopted 
new musical developments that they observed in their jour¬ 
neys. In 1685 Johann Georg III (d. 1691) brought back 
from a trip a prima donna whom he had lured away from 
the service of the duke of Mantua. This represented a 
dramatic change for the Holkapelle, since until this time 
female stage roles had been played and sung by men (either 
in falsetto or in the naturally high voices of castrati). 

Outside the church the Hofkapelle’s vocalists and 
instrumentalists participated increasingly in court concerts 
and theater performances, such as Daphne by Martin Opitz 
and Heinrich Schiitz in 1627. Opera performances were 
especially well received in Dresden, as they are to this day. 
From 1662 to 1816 opera was sung almost exclusively in 
Italian at the Dresden court; performances in French were 
rare, and German performances took place only after the 
German Opera opened in 1817. Italian opera in Dresden 
reached its zenith under the direction of Johann Adolf 
Hasse (1734-63). The nineteenth-century German Opera, 
best known as the Hofoper, had two outstanding periods 
influenced respectively by the tenure as Hofkapellmeister 
of Carl Maria von Weber (1817-26) and Richard Wagner 
(1842-49). 

For centuries the brilliant reputation of the Dresden 
Hofkapelle attracted renowned soloists, such as violinists 
Johann Georg Pisendel, Antonio Rolla, and Karol Lipinski; 
cellists Friedrich Dotzauer, Friedrich August Kummer, and 
Friedrich Griitzmacher; flutists Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin, 
Johann Joachim Quantz, and Anton Bernhard Fiirstenau; 
and oboists Johann Christian Richter and Antonio and 
Carlo Besozzi. The Dresden musicians were also sought- 
after teachers. Great works on music instruction were 
written by the conductors Giovanni Andrea Bontempi 
(Dresden, 1660), Christoph Bernhard (a work that survives 
in a seventeenth-century manuscript), and Johann David 
Heinichen. Heinichen’s Basso Continuo in Music (Dresden, 
1728) is still considered the standard work on the subject. 
Other important instructional works include Quantz’s 
On Playing the Flute (published in Berlin in 1752, but 
mainly reflecting Dresden orchestra practice) and Moritz 
Fiirstenau’s still unsurpassed History of the Theater and 


Music at the Dresden Court (1861-62), the earliest local 
history of such scope. 

The conductor Michael Praetorius had relied on 
the instruments of the Dresden Hofkapelle in his descrip¬ 
tion of common and rare musical instruments for his 
Syntagma musicum (1615-20). Similarly, in 1910-n a group 
from the Dresden Hofkapelle published a more general 
three-volume work, Musical Instruments in Word 
and Picture, edited by E. Teuchert and E. W. Haupt. 

Saxony’s Music Publishing Industry and Depositories 

A lively music-publishing industry developed as a result 
of the musical works produced in Saxony. Leipzig, with its 
long-standing tradition of book publishing and book fairs, 
gradually became the center of music publishing. Such 
famous publishers as Breitkopf & Hartel and C. F. Peters 
were located in Leipzig. Although there was considerable 
competition among the well-schooled Dresden court 
copyists in the field of hand-copied music, Leipzig 
in the eighteenth century achieved a leading position 
in music publishing and it continued to enlarge its 
dominance of the market until the end of the nineteenth 
century. There was hardly a publishing house from Russia 
to the United States that did not have its musical works 
printed in Leipzig. 

This prodigious output of hand-copied and printed 
music posed a problem for storage and cataloging. For this 
reason, during the nineteenth century large scholarly 
libraries became depositories for historical music material. 
Often the works had passed through the hands of private 
collectors and were donated to or purchased by the 
libraries. 

In 1816 the noted librarian Friedrich Adolf Ebert 
established a Music Department at the Royal Public 
Library in Saxony, now the Saxon State Library. A special 
catalog lists the impressive original collection, which was 
later enhanced by donations of entire collections. In 1890 
the library received several music collections from Saxon 
churches, city archives, and schools; these were followed 
in 1897 by the splendid private music collection of the 
Saxon kings, dating primarily from the eighteenth and 


Music in Saxony 


42 . 


nineteenth centuries. Unfortunately, the Hofkapelle’s 
archives from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
which included music materials by Heinrich Schiitz 
written in his own hand, were destroyed in the Prussian 
bombardment of Dresden in 1760. 

In the twentieth century the collection was further 
enlarged by music materials from the royal, church, and 
opera collections; the Grimma and Zittau collections; 
and the Annaberg choirbooks. During World War II 
bombs destroyed most of the contemporary music collec¬ 
tion of the Saxon State Library. After the war, however, 
the library once again began to collect the work of contem¬ 
porary composers. The primary emphasis continues to 
be on original manuscripts by Saxon composers and on 
compositions that either received their premiere in 
Dresden or have other ties to Dresden or Saxony. As long 
as the library maintains this high standard for collecting 
Saxony’s musical heritage, its renowned position in the 
world of music will be secure. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


Bibliography 


Compiled by Eberhard Stimmel 

Note: Entries for titles held by the Library of Congress include 
the Library of Congress call number in bold-face type. 

Literature about the Saxon State Library 

Aus der Arbeit der Sdchsischen Landesbibliothek 1956-1965. 
Edited by Burghard Burgemeister. Dresden: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1966. 152 pp. Z802.D77 A9 

Aus der Arbeit der Sdchsischen Landesbibliothek: 
Zehnjahrbericht 1966—1995. Edited by Burghard 
Burgemeister. Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 

1977. 286 pp. Z803.D73 1977 

Bollert, Martin. Jahresbericht der Sdchsischen 
Landesbibliothek 1950-1955. Dresden: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1936. 64 pp. 

Deckert, Helmut. Katalog der Inkunabeln der Sdchsischen 
Landesbibliothek zu Dresden. Zentralblatt fur 
Bibliothekswesen, 80. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1957. 

255 pp., portrait, facs. Z671.C39 b no. 80 

Deckert, Helmut. Maya-Handschrift der Sdchsischen 
Landesbibliothek Dresden: Geschichte und Bibliographic. 
Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1962. 86 pp., color facs. 

(in pocket). F1435.3.P6 D4 

Ebert, Friedrich Adolf. Geschichte und Beschreibung 
der Koniglichen Offentlichen Bibliothek zu Dresden. Leipzig: 
Brockhaus, 1822. xviii + 358 pp. Z802.D77E 


Ermisch, Hubert Georg. Das Japanische Palais in 
Dresden-Neustadt. Geschichtliche Wanderfahrten, 40. 
Dresden: C. Heinrich, 1935. 39 pp. 

Falkenstein, Karl. Beschreibung der Koniglichen 
Offentlichen Bibliothek zu Dresden. Dresden: Walthersche 
Hofbuchhandlung, 1839. 887 pp. Z802.D7 C3 1839 

Fuhrer durch das Buchmuseum. Edited by Christian 
Alschner. Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 1979. 
N6865.D39 

Goetze, Johann Christian. Die Merckwiirdigkeiten 
der Koniglichen Bibliotheck zu Dresden. Dresden: Walther, 
1743. 562 pp. 

Hantzsch, Viktor. Die Landkartenbestande der 
Koniglichen Offentlichen Bibliothek zu Dresden. Zentralblatt 
fur Bibliothekswesen, 28. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 

1904. 146 pp. 

Jahresbericht der Koniglichen Offentlichen Bibliothek 
(ab 1918 der Sdchsischen Landesbibliothek) 1910-1929. Jahrlich 
wechselnde Seitenzahl. Dresden: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1911-30. 

Katalog der Handschriften der Sdchsischen Landesbibliothek 
zu Dresden. 5 vols. Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 
1979-86. 

Neubert, Hermann. Zur Geschichte der Sdchsischen 
Landesbibliothek. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1936. 61 pp., 
ill. (including plans, plates). Z802.D77N 


Petzhold, Julius. Dresdens Bibliotheken: Ein Wegweiser 
fur Fremde und Einheimische. Dresden: Arnoldische 
Buchhandlung, 1846. 108 pp. 

Sachsische Landesbibliothek. Die Wettiner als Forderer 
von Kunst und Wissenschaft: Handschrifien, Stiche, 
Zeichnungen, Druckwerke aus dem Bestand der Sdchsischen 
Landesbibliothek Dresden: Ausstellung vom 1. Februar 
bis 30. Juni 1989, Sachsische Landesbibliothek Dresden. 
Edited by Katrin Nitzschke. Dresden: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1989. 35 pp., ill. NX550.6.A3 S294 1989 

Sachsische Landesbibliothek 1996-1983, Die. Edited by 
Burghard Burgemeister. Dresden: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1987. 176 pp. Z803.S23 S24 1977 

Sachsische Landesbibliothek Dresden: 1336-1936; Festschrift 
zum 400-jdhrigen Bestehen. Leipzig: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1956. 298 pp. 

SLB-Kurier: Nachrichten aus der Sdchsischen 
Landesbibliothek. Dresden: Direktor der Sachsischen 
Landesbibliothek, 1987—. Ill. Z803.S23 S58 

Uber die Arbeitsteilung im Dresdner Bibliothekswesen: 
Untersuchungen zu ihrer Geschichte und Perspektive; 
wissenschaftliche Festveranstaltung anlafhch des 423-jahrigen 
Bestehens der Sdchsischen Landesbibliothek, Dresden, 
13.10.1981. Edited by Burghard Burgemeister. Dresden: 
Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 1982. 108 pp., 3 leaves 
of plates, 3 ill. (color), z803.s23.u27 1982 


Literature about Dresden 

Bader, Karin, ed. Dresden in 144 Bildern. Leer: 
Rautenberg, 1991. 144 ill. DD901.D74 D73 1991 

Bergander, Gotz. Dresden im Luftkrieg: Vorgeschichte, 
Zerstorung, Folgen. Weimar: Bohlau, 1994. 435 pp., ill., 
maps. D757.9.D7B47 1994 


Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Stadt Dresden. Edited 
by Historische Komission der Sachsischen Akademie 
der Wissenschaften and Sachsischen Landesbibliothek. 

5 vols. Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 1981-84. 
Z2244.D7 B53 1981 

Dieckmann, Friedrich. Dresdner Ansichten: Spaziergdnge 
und Erkundungen. Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag, 1995. 
194 pp., ill. 

Dresden: Ein Reisebuch. Edited by Katrin Nitzschke. 
Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag, 1993. 293 pp. 

Dresden in alten Ansichtskarten. Frankfurt am Main: 
Umschau-Verlag, 1976. 128 pp., many ill. (some color). 

DD901.D74 D74 

Dresden: Stadt der Fiirsten, Stadt der Kiinstler. Edited 
by Katrin Nitzschke and Lothar Koch. Bergisch Gladbach: 
Liibbe, 1992. 256 pp., ill. (some color). 

DD901.D75 D75 1992 

Gretzschel, Matthias. Die Dresdner Frauenkirche. 
Flamburg: Ellert & Richter, 1994. 231 pp., ill. 

Loffler, Fritz. Das alte Dresden: Geschichte seiner Bauten. 
Leipzig: Seemann, 1994. 504 pp. 

Marx, Harald. Dresden. Wurzburg: Stiitz, 1992. 144 pp., 
ill. (color). N6886.D7 K37 1994 

Museen in Dresden: Ein Fiihrer durch 42 Museen und 
Sammlungen. Edited by Manfred Bachmann and Hans 
Prescher. Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 1991. 326 pp., ill. 

(some color), maps. AM51.D7M88 1991 

...Oder Dresden: Fotos, Dokumente und Texte einer 
Ausstellung 40 Jahre nach der Zerstorung der Stadt. Edited 
by Winfried Werner. Dresden: Fischer, 1991. in pp., ill. 

Quinger, Heinz. Dresden und Umgebung: Geschichte 
und Kunst der sdchsischen Hauptstadt. Cologne: DuMont, 
1993. 400 pp. DD901.D74Q56 1993 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


Stadtlexikon Dresden A-Z. Edited by Folke Stimmel et al. 
Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1994. 511 pp., ill. (some color), 
bibliography, index. DD901.D73 S73 1994 

Verbrannt bis zur Unkenntlichkeit: Die Zerstdrung Dresdens 
1945. Edited by Stadtmuseum Dresden. Altenburg: DZA 
Verlag fur Kultur und Wissenschaft, 1994. 161 pp., ill. 


Literature about Saxony 

Albert Herzog zu Sachsen: Die Wettiner in Lebensbildern. 
Graz: Styria, 1995. 

Blaschke, Karlheinz. Der Fiirstenzug zu Dresden: 
Denkmal und Geschichte des Hauses Wettin. Leipzig: Urania, 
1991. 224 pp., ill. (chiefly color). DD801.S357 B55 1991 

Blaschke, Karlheinz. Geschichte Sachsens im Mittelalter. 
Munich: Beck, 1990. 397 pp., ill. DD801.S361 B55 1990 

Czok, Karl. Am Hofe August des Starken. Stuttgart: 
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1990. 178 pp., ill. 

DD801.S395 c 95 I 99 ° 

Delau, Reinhard. August der Starke: Bilder einer Zeit. 
Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1989. 247 pp., ill. 

(some color). DD801.S95 D45 1989 

Dohmann, Albrecht. Sachsen. Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 
1993. 469 pp., ill. N6881.D74 1993 

Engelhardt, Heiderose. Sachsen: Kunstfahrten zwischen 
Leipzig, Dresden und Chemnitz. Munich: Bucher, 1993. 

224 pp., ill. (color). N6881.E54 1993 

Fellmann, Walter Sachsens letzter Konig, Friedrich 
August III. Berlin: Koehler & Amelang, 1992. 263 pp., ill. 
DD801.S44 F45 1992 


Gerlach, Siegfried, ed. Sachsen: Einepolitische 
Landeskunde. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1993. 291 pp. 
JN4836.S23 1993 

Gretzschel, Matthias. Sachsen. Hamburg: Ellert & 
Richter, 1993. 96 pp., many ill. (chiefly color). 

DD801.S34 G75 1993 

Hansmann, Wilfried. Im Glanz des Barock: ein Begleiter 
zu den Bauwerken August des Starken und Friedrich des 
Grofen. Cologne: DuMont, 1992. 300 pp., ill. (some color) 
NA1086.D7 H36 1992 

Jahrhundert der Reformation in Sachsen, Das: Festgabe 
zum 450-jahrigen Bestehen der Evangelisch-Lutherischen 
Landeskirche Sachsens: Im Auftrag der Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur 
Sachsische Kirchengeschichte. Edited by Helmar Junghans. 
Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989. 261 pp., ill., 
including 32 pp. of plates. BR358.S3 J34 1989 

Mitten in Europa: Der Freistaat Sachsen und seine Region. 
Edited by Sachsische Staatskanzlei. Wiesbaden: Gabler, 

1991. 143 pp., ill. HC287.S3 M58 1991 

Naumann, Gunter Sachsische Geschichte in Daten. Berlin: 
Koehler & Amelang, 1991. 302 pp. DD801.S352 N38 1991 

Pleticha, Heinrich. Kulturlandschaft Sachsen. Freiburg 
im Breisgau: Herder, 1992. 198 pp., ill. (some color). 
DD801.S34 P55 1992 

Sachsen: Historische Landeskunde Mitteldeutschlands. 

Edited by Hermann Heckmann. Wurzburg: Weidlich, 

1991. 275 pp., ill. 

Wissenschafts- und Universitatsgeschichte in Sachsen im 18. 
und 19. Jahrhundert: Nationale und internationale 
Wechselwirkung und Ausstrahlung: Beitrdge des interna- 
tionalen Kolloquiums zum 575. Jahr der Universitatsgriindung 
am 26. und 27. November 1984 in Leipzig. Edited by 
Karl Czok. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1987. 242 pp., ill. 
(including plates). LA747.W57 1987 


Bibliography 


Zimmermann, Ingo. Sachsens Markgrafen, Kurfursten und 
Konige: Die Wettiner in der meissnisch-sdchsischen Geschichte. 
Berlin: Berliner Verlags-Anstalt Union, 1990. 141 pp., ill. 
DD801.S357 z 5 <> I 99 ° 


Other Works of Interest 

Blaschke, Karlheinz, et al., eds. Freistaat Sachsen stellt 
sich vor. Dresden: Sachsische Landeszentrale fur politische 
Bildung, 1991. 74 pp., ill., maps. DD801.S35 F47 1991 

Blickle, Peter. Die Revolution von 1525. Munich and 
Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1981. 326 pp., ill. DD182.B6 1981 

Breul, Karl Herrmann. The Romantic Movement in 
German Literature. Cambridge: HefFer, 1927. xiv + 506 pp. 
PTI172.B7 

Christensen, Carl C. Princes and Propaganda: Electoral 
Saxon Art of the Reformation. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth 
Century Journal Publishers, 1992. viii + 149 pp., ill. 
ND1317.2.C47 1992 

Grimm, Reinhold, et al., eds. Romanticism Today: 
Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Ludwig 
Tieck. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1973. 90 pp., ill. PT362.R595 

Hennenberg, Fritz. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. 
Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 1962. 101 pp., ill., portrait, facs. 
ML280.8.L3 G26 

Hofmann, Erna Hedwig. The Dresden Kreuz Chor. 
Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 1962. 98 pp., ill., phonograph 
record (2 sides, 7 in., 45 rpm) laid in. ML280.8.D7 K733 

Jager, Eckhard. Leipzig im Spiegel alter Graphik: Eine 
Ikonographie zur Geschichte des Leipziger Stadtbildes und 
seiner Bauten vom 16—19. Jahrhundert. Darmstadt: 
Blaschke, 1970. 104, 18 pp., ill. (6 in pocket). Z2244.L5 J33 


John, Hans. Der Dresdner Kreuzchor und seine Kantoren. 
Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1982. 176 pp., ill., 
including 32 pp. of plates. ML2929.J64 1982 

Johst, Hugo, ed. Leipzig in alten Ansichtskarten. Frankfurt 
am Main: Flechsig, 1978. 103 pp., ill. DD901.L54 L525 

Klein, Thomas. Der Kampf um die zweite Reformation in 
Kursachsen, 1986—1991. Cologne: Bohlau, 1962. x + 220 pp. 
BR358.S3 K55 1962 

Kobuch, Agatha. Zensur und Aufkldrung in Kursachsen: 
Ideologische Stromungen und politische Meinungen zur Zeit 
der sdchsisch-polnischen Union (1697—1769). Weimar: 

Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1988. 298 pp. CD1280. A35 Vol. 12 

Koenigsberger, Helmut Georg. Luther: A Profile. 
London: Macmillan, 1973. xxii + 234 pp. BR326.K575 1973b 

Laux, Karl. The Dresden Staatskapelle. Leipzig: VEB 
Edition, 1964. 125 pp., ill. ML1729.8.D72 M843 

Leipzig, aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Edited by 
Museum fur Geschichte der Stadt Leipzig. Leipzig: 
Fachbuchverlag, 1984. 275 pp., ill. DD901.L55 L37 1984 

Lindsay, Thomas Martin. Luther and the German 
Reformation. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 

1970. xii + 300 pp. BR325.L48 1970 

Oberman, Heiko Augustinus. Luther: Man between God 
and the Devil. Translated by Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart. 
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. 380 pp., ill. 

BR325.02713 1989 

Pietzsch, Gerhard. Sachsen als Musikland. Dresden: 

Verlag Heimatwerk Sachsen, 1938. 96 pp., ill. (including 
music plates and facs.), portrait. ML280.P5 S2 

Rabe, Horst. Reichsbund und Interim: Die Verfassungs- 
und Religionspolitik Karls V. und der Reichstag von Augsburg 
1947/1948. Cologne and Vienna: Bohlau, 1917. 496 pp. 
DD180.R17 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


Schanze, Helmut, ed. Romantik-Handbucb. Stuttgart: 

A. Kroner, 1994. 802 pp. PT361.R616 1994 

Schilling, Heinz. Aufbruch und Krise: Deutschland, 
1517-1648. Berlin: Siedler, 1988. 507 pp., ill., maps. 
DD176.S3 1988 

Semper, Gottfried, ed. Konigliche Hoftheater zu Dresden. 
Introduction by Harold Hammer-Schenk. Braunschweig: 
Vieweg, 1986. Portrait. NA6840.G352 475 1986 

Splendors of Dresden, The. New York: Newsweek, 1979. 

N2280.S67 

Steindorf, Eberhard. Die Staatskapelle Dresden. 

Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1987. 91 pp., ill. 
ML1229.8.D72S77 1987 

Steude, Wolfram. Musikgeschichte Dresdens in Umrissen. 
Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek, 1978. 54 pp. 
ML284.8.D7S7 1978 

Stobbe, Ursula. “Bibliographic der Sachsischen 
Landesbibliothek 1956-1965.” In Aus der Arbeit der 
Sachsischen Landesbibliothek 1956-1965, edited by Burghard 
Burgemeister, pp. 105-48. Dresden: Sachsische 
Landesbibliothek, 1966. Z802.D77 A9 

Streich, Brigitte. Zwischen Reiseherrschaft und 
Residenzbildung: Der Wettinische Hofim spaten Mittelalter. 
Cologne: Bohlau, 1989. xii + 666 pp., ill. 

DD801.S37 S77 1989 

Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, ed. Deutscher Bauernkrieg 
1524—1526. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975. 

356 pp. DD182.D48 

Wernaer, Robert Maximilian. Romanticism and the 
Romantic School in Germany. New York: Appleton, 1910. 
xv + 375 pp. PT361.W5 


Willoughby, Leonard Ashley. The Romantic 
Movement in Germany. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966. 
vi + 192 pp. PT361.W6 1966 

Woody, Thomas. Fiirstenschulen in Germany after t 
he Reformation. Menasha, Wis.: George Banta Publishing, 
1920. 46 pp., frontispiece, portrait, facs. LA721.4.W6 

Zeeden, Ernst Walter. Die Entstehung der Konfessionen. 
Munich: Oldenbourg, 1965. 213 pp. BR305.2.Z4 

Ziolkowski, Theodore. German Romanticism and Its 
Institutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 
440 pp. PT361.Z48 1990 

Zur Muhlen, Karl-Heinz. Reformatorisches Profil: 
Studien zum Weg Martin Luthers und der Reformation. 
Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995. 


Bibliography 


Illustrations 


m — 



i. Item 2 

Machsor mechol haschana. (Jewish Holy Day Prayer Book 
for the Whole Year.) Germany, c. 1290. Vellum. 

Moses receives the Ten Commandments and presents 
them to the people. 

This magnificent manuscript is a testimony to German 
Jewry of the Middle Ages. Machsorim (cycles) are the 
special prayer books for Sabbath and other holy days. 

The Dresden manuscript contains prayers for the Feast 


of Weeks, Passover, and the feast commemorating the 
deliverance of the Jews from a Persian plot, along with 
poetry by Rabbi Meir von Rothenburg (1215-93) and the 
renowned Hebrew poet Juda Halevi (1075-1141). Part 2 
of this work, containing prayers for the remaining holy 
days, is located in Wroclaw, Poland. Both parts were 
written by Reuben, a pupil of Rabbi Meir, probably in 
Esslingen. The beautiful miniatures by an anonymous 
Gentile illuminator are painted in Christian Gothic style. 

















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Petrarca, Francesco: Des remedes de l’une et l’autre 
fortune. (Of Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul.) France, 
mid-fifteenth century. Vellum. 

Scholar and disciple at home. 

In 1365 the renowned Italian poet Francesco Petrarca 
(1304—74) wrote Of Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul, in 
which he offers advice, in the form of dialogues between 
Reason and Agony, on thinking clearly in times of happi¬ 
ness and sorrow. The Dresden manuscript, containing 


Jean Daudin’s translation, is dedicated to King Charles VII 
and is an outstanding example of Flemish fifteenth-century 
workmanship, with its delicate gold initials and arabesques. 
Especially outstanding are the two miniatures, the early 
work of Jacques de Besamjon. Before it was acquired for 
the Dresden collection in 1725, the manuscript had several 
illustrious French owners: Jacques d’Armagnac, count of 
Nemours (d. 1477), Antoine de Bourgogne (d. 1564), and 
Countess Anne Henriette de Conde (d. 1723). 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 





































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3. Item 8 

Boccaccio, Giovanni: Des cas des nobles hommes et 
femmes. (Of the Fate of Illustrious Men and Women.) 
France, c. 1520. Vol. 2. Vellum. 

Boccaccio and his audience. 

Though he is today better known for his Decameron, until 
the middle of the sixteenth century Giovanni Boccaccio 
was most famous for his work Of the Fate of Illustrious Men 
and Women. Using biblical, classical, and mythological 
examples, he shows how a change in fortune can destroy 


even the powerful. Written around 1360, this work was 
soon translated into all the major European languages. 
Volumes 2-5 of the magnificent manuscript date from 1520 
and show that handwritten manuscripts were produced for 
the wealthy and powerful even after the invention of print¬ 
ing. The dedicatory inscription indicates that Charles 
de Bourbon gave the volumes to King Francis I of France. 
Two hundred years later, they were presented to the Saxon 
elector Augustus the Strong by Prince Karol Stanisfaw 
Radziwifh 


Illustrations 






























































FRANCHINI GAFORI LAVDENSIS . MVSICE ACTIO, 

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cxercltatloncm melodicaivocls fentiuntharmonica; confydeiiatlonl plu^ 
rimutri contull (lemon q, variant el multltudlncm fed Ipfam adhibeat per.* 
fcctloncm. ([Eftlglturntufica: adtlo motus fonorum cofonantlas ac me. 1 
[ lodlam eftidens. Quos quldetn fonos fruftra ratloneSC fclcntla colllge: j 
mus: inElpfa fuerint cxerdtatlonccompraihenfi. Hluc corum Intcnlio, 
nesrcmlflioncfq;acconfonantlasnonanlmotantum atq;ratloncdcdau, 
dltus SC pronutlarionls coufuctudlnc pcrnotefccre necefle cft.([Sed neq; 

ali 


4. Item 12 

Gaffurius (Gafori), Franchinus: Practica Musicae. 

(The Performance of Music.) Milan, 1496. Printed 
on vellum. 

Choir and musical cherubs. 

From 1451 to 1522 Franchinus Gaffurius, the highly educat¬ 
ed conductor of Milan Cathedral, was considered the 
authority on musical theory. During his lifetime his text¬ 
book Practica Musicae was published in six editions. He 
greatly influenced music theory by relating theory and 
practice and by enhancing the application of intervals and 


musical notation. The second and fourth editions (Brescia, 
1497 and 1508) became items 4 and 5 in the newly estab¬ 
lished Music Department of the library. Today they are 
rarer than the first edition. A fine copy of the first edition 
was purchased by then librarian Falkenstein, who com¬ 
mented on its connection with the library: “Francesco 
Morlacchi, the last conductor of the Italian Opera House 
in Dresden, sold this copy to the Konigliche Bibliothek 
in September 1841 shortly before departing for Italy to cure 
his consumption. He was not to reach his goal: he died 
October 28 in Innsbruck.” 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 

















MM 




53 - 


5. Item is 

Durer, Albrecht: Passio Domini Nostri Jesu. (The 
Passion of Our Lord Jesus.) Nuremberg, 1511. 

Christ on the Cross. 

The artistic legacy of Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) includes 
not only his work as a painter, graphic artist, and drafts¬ 
man, but also his work as an art historian. This sketchbook 
contains the master’s original drawings and his autograph 
manuscript of book 1 of his Proportionslehre (Guidelines for 
Proportions). This treasure contains three woodcut series: 
the life of the Virgin Mary, the Passion of Jesus Christ, 


and the Apocalypse. Created over a period of time (the 
leaf on display, for example, dates between 1496 and 1499), 
they were first gathered in one volume and printed with 
the Latin verses of Benedict Chelidonius in 1511. The 
Dresden exemplar owes its special charm to the colorful 
floral border and its illumination probably done in 
Diirer’s workshop. 


Illustrations 



















































































54 - 




\ 



- ^ _ 

-x C ^(]fo fomentberjSungut 

tfjiubemlebenfvtfdjbnnbjcfunb ^ 
L ©o t m llbetfeibtgcnftunb 
(prmjev^emalc bon bnne ojcnoiuen 
^ modern auc§ tufig fomcn 
Danu Jrrtfccin cmfTUc^ev (td<xn 
£Safttmb un( mcpcer fa$en att_ 


6 . Item 16 

Pfinzing, Melchior: Theuerdank. Augsburg, 1519. 

Theuerdank’s horse being hit by a bullet. 

Emperor Maximilian I (1459—1519) created a literary monu¬ 
ment to himself with his poem Theuerdank, the only one 
of several planned literary works to be completed and pub¬ 
lished during his lifetime. No other book of the time 
compares with it in typographic and artistic workmanship. 
Conceived by the emperor himself and written with the 


assistance of the court poet, Melchior Pfinzing, this allegori¬ 
cal poem in the tradition of the heroic epics describes the 
young Maximilian’s courtship of Maria, heiress to 
Burgundy. It is one of the earliest books written in Fraktur 
and is enhanced by woodcuts by the artists Hans 
Burgkmair, Hans Schaufelein, and Leonhard Beck, depict¬ 
ing everyday life at the beginning of the sixteenth century. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 








xx mi. 

(Jog, ?£i‘tcbcrtcfc> bcv ©rtcce / 

(Tfeurfuvff ju ©acf)fcn/etct 


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Sen febenen $mt> afjidc id) im 

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7. Item ip 

Wahrhaftige Abcontrafactur und Bildnis aller 
GroBherzogen von Sachsen. (Authentic Representations 
and Portraiture of Ail the Grand Dukes of Saxony.) 
Dresden, 1586. Vellum. 

Elector Friedrich the Wise. 

The study of Martin Luther and the Reformation also 
involves considering the role of Elector Friedrich the Wise 
(1463-1525). He was a man of profound religious beliefs and 


broad education with extensive interests in theology, history, 
and jurisprudence. His court was a vital center of humanis¬ 
tic studies, the arts, and music. In 1502 he founded the 
University of Wittenberg, where Luther became a professor 
in 1512. The elector granted Luther protection while publicly 
remaining neutral. In 1521 he provided Luther safe-conduct 
to the imperial Diet in Worms and provided him asylum 
at Wartburg Castle at the risk of endangering his own state. 
The elector’s politics allowed the Reformation to spread. 


Illustrations 












V'' 


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VS. 


tirfo 

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fat? T*»^| (^^VV fajyy^ yy^- Jyy. 

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8. tow 34 

Luther, Martin: Autograph letter to Duchess Katharina 
of Saxony. Wittenberg, 28 July 1539. 

Duke Georg, ruler of the Albertinian part of Saxony 
(1471—1539), successfully opposed Luther’s Reformation in 
his state. However, his successor and younger brother, 
Heinrich (1473—1541), sympathized with the Reformation, 
supported by his wife Duchess Katharina (1487—1561), 


who had for years been one of Luther’s followers. The 
Reformation now proceeded in the duchy of Saxony, 
though with resistance in Leipzig on the part of monks, 
university theologians, and some members of the city 
council. Luther’s letter of 28 July 1539, opening with the 
words, “... because my esteemed Lord Duke Heinrich [is] 
old and frail ...,” sought Katharina’s support for the 
implementation of the Reformation in the duchy. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 









Jitdpithbrrgencfia qirididfbcbiaice b:c- 

(itbXapuulumpamum. 


gna * tempos a dies a anoemt luceant f fir 
memento cdut illuminau terram. £t foetus 
eft ita.fcritqs de* duo luminaria magna: lu 


■Ctpuulumpamum. 


minare maiue ut pellet dfefct lumlare mmuf 
utpeflet noctL'-r ftellaa. £x pofiiiteaa f firma 
moo edi ut lucerent fuper terram: i predict 
did ac noctK-i dtuiderct luce ac teriebtas. £t 
vidit dale q> diet bonum a faaum c vcfpete 
? mane dice quarma.Erijrit cria dcua. T^to 
ducant aque repdlc anime riumriri a vo lari' 
le fop fram Tub drmatnento cdi. tCreamtqj 


IlflpMctptocreamt 

dots eda t frlZerra.n.erai ina' 
iris i pacua % tenebte erat Tup fa' 
ac abjflT a (pa dfi! ferebatur Tup 
aquaa.Euptqjde’.fiatlur. £t 
facta e luju£t pidit de’ luce qp eet 
bomua duriftt luce a tenebwuap 
pdlauitcB lueem diejra tenebtaa 
nocte-factuqs epefpea mane di 


ilea piuta.dipt quoqs dc\ fiat fir' 


a foriente fane iujc genus fount: Ugruimq; fa' ucrfo ope qo patrarar.Ct bencdijritdid fcp' 

dene fructumra babens rinnmqoqs femente rimoitlacttficauitfllaqmpfocefiaucratab 

fimfpeaemfuasXtuidltdeuetpeflctbonn- oiopere fuoquodcreautt dcuaut foccrct. 

a factum eftpdpereet manedica terriua.Eri 3fte fum gnariones cell a terrequando crca 

jit autem dcua.-fumt luminaria in firmame te funt in die quo fedt data cclum a terram: 

to cdi a diuidant diem ac noctenut full in ft' ? ointicwgultu agri amcqs otirctur in terra | 


S 7 - 


9. Item 45 

Biblia. (The Bible.) Venice, 1479. Printed on vellum. 

The creation of man, the Fall, and the expulsion 
from Paradise. 

Venice’s reputation as an early printing center was above all 
based on the works of Nikolaus Jenson, who from 147° 
until his death in 1480 printed ninety-eight known works, 
primarily classical works and legal and theological litera¬ 


ture. His Antiqua type, which recreates the letter forms 
of Roman inscriptions in modern print, is considered the 
perfect embodiment of humanistic ideals. This vellum 
printing of a 1479 Bible is an outstanding incunabulum. In 
the Dresden exemplar the major initials are illuminated, 
with the smaller ones in red and blue. The two leaves with 
miniatures are precious, especially that showing several 
themes from Genesis. 


Illustrations 
























58 . 



.©ottcs wort 
jSwt W& 


furftUdxrsu 95ack»fen 


^cfcruckt Durcl^ liaansX «fft 


fib. fc. XXXIIII, 


iHitin nni 


.. 

HBBhSSH!S fiffii 


io. Item 48 

Biblia deutsch. Ubersetzt von Martin Luther. (The Bible in 
German. Translated by Martin Luther.) Wittenberg, 1534. 

Title page of the first complete Bible in Luther’s 
translation. 

This Bible is considered one of Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) 
greatest linguistic accomplishments. He first translated 
the New Testament in 1522. His translation of the Old 
Testament was interrupted by political upheaval and was 
published in parts until 1534. Luther united the separate 


sections into a complete Bible and thoroughly revised the 
text with the assistance of the Wittenberg scholars Philipp 
Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and Caspar Cruciger. The work 
was richly illustrated with historiated initials and 117 
woodcuts from the workshop of Lucas Cranach and shows 
Luther’s strong influence on its pictorial themes. It was 
completed in September 1534 and sold at the Leipzig fair 
that October for 2 guilders, 8 groschen for an unbound 
copy. For comparison, a schoolmaster of the time earned 
approximately 4 guilders annually. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 









































































a 3tdj bent <ob 
SSJfofc bee fnc« 

XOC'JI/fprari} 
ber-pgOtX 
jtt^ofimbtm <5cn5hm/ 
StRofea fticner: 


SOWn frtecljf SSJtofc i(I go 
|iorbcn/©o maefj biefj nu 
auff/»nbjcuc^tibcr biefen 


3crb(m/bu»nb bis gand 
A ?OoW/| 


DeiK robo- 
rat H fola- 
turlofuam. 


(Sett dereKt 
»nb irSflrt 
7Jofua/cic. 


LIBER I O S VE : 

HE*B%,JICE IE.- 
HOSVA. 


Caput I. 

Tfaftum ell 
poll mortem 
Mojfo ferui 

DOMINI, ht 

loqueretur domuvi ad 
Iofoe filium Nun, mini* 
forum Mojfo, isr diceret: 

Moyjes ferutis mens 
rnortim eH,niic ergo for¬ 
ge, Ur tranfo lordanem 
ijlum tu iy omnis popu- 
Ins 


59 - 


ii. Item 5 2 

Biblia Germanico-Latina. (German-Latin Bible.) 
Wittenberg, 1565. Printed on vellum. 

Saxon elector Augustus. 

In numerous manuscripts and books is the statement that 
they were written or printed “by order of” Elector Augustus 
(1526-86). Thus, in 1565 he had printed in Wittenberg at 
his expense this twenty-volume Bible in Latin and German, 
partly on vellum, and richly decorated with colored 
miniatures and initials. In each volume is an illuminated 


woodcut portrait of the elector after a painting by Lucas 
Cranach the Younger. Several sets, beautifully bound, were 
given to friendly princes. Displayed here is the private 
copy of Elector Augustus, which includes a unique vellum 
sheet with the inscription: “His lordship the elector of 
Saxony began reading this Bible on June 9 in the year [15)85 
and finished on August 23 of the same year. It took ten 
weeks and five days.” 


Illustrations 







































Ate Cretans ber vtstutn well. 



12. Item yy 

Kentmann, Johannes: Krauterbuch. 

(Book of Herbs.) 1563. 

Red apples from the New World (,tomato plants). 
Johannes Kentmann (1518-74) was the typical sixteenth- 
century German scientist. Born in Dresden, he studied 
in Leipzig and Wittenberg, and in Bologna, Italy, where 
he earned his doctorate in medicine and surgery. In his 
long career as a principal physician at Torgau, he wrote 


on many scientific subjects. In 1563, commissioned 
by Elector August, he compiled his Krauterbuch (Book 
of Herbs), a systematic arrangement of approximately 
600 illustrations of trees, bushes, shrubs, and domestic 
and wild plants, executed by the Torgau artist, David 
Redtel. The Krauterbuch was never printed, and this 
unique manuscript remains a treasure of the Saxon 
State Library. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 










mfcbmtmuaumcm 


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'll Ivuntf Jiw .Srtn(Vln vfvwttsnr.amW»Jnmwu\£Vt 

\ A Ynut Hmun/limutm fciimudVl liimwcij wmMriijJfmtathu’ffflu(anil lingo 
\\*V'Vfu$. wrlrtw<vi'vv^# fo umibWinumvnnc»»>cv*rmiiv'Jn iiuHviim 
-1! Jvfci'Uu (httn-jHfct ftefi i'« toLj&rt ?ww lh»i im<i|ivl)t IfofWtftivtat o:t iifytjkfom 

: Y Nin>un\iDv1lVn\uvf^i‘»M'iVnil(nu^urnuiii'fl«nulMuiu(iTr^it()iru»rj_ 

k du;' m \(ffuS->\m\^i\orfai< 5 rv'ifl\r<»rm?n<,'(n Ab'tnUiVimifrHnynt^TtrchVn.Vm' 
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imncfmr«taif»"»M< m\t ta mi f >»t wdjtft i fiw^wi l?u fi fUf; tail ltmtdr bumu' 

Ifn IhUitti* vbnlhnYt .JfB«U2 mutam;rrh»vltni rcbitni'fffomftH/m tat (ftjmfjmt 
Hr ttvmi' wmi ntiujft jm Mf (ftpvrri Nunif tuninT&fmj rrJi r 4iU (Hi t wn alfe j iiwm 
flvIJ ti-itmifWitvifm ihntrfai fclj(nnrftffi(rftmVun srrbtoi emidUfttaii kiiucfe 
jynuO wnvt tamum fclnrtaf I'ltpyff 

- J»i rtlfc mm h t$t t u<fi> /<C"I (~~ 


61. 


13. Item 60 

Mair, Paulus Hector: Fecht-, Ring- und Turnierbuch. 
(Book of Fencing, Wrestling, and Jousting.) Mid-sixteenth 
century. 

Duel with long swords. 

In the Middle Ages fencing and wrestling were not only 
exercises for war preparation but also a favorite art form at 
social events for the nobility and the city society. Fencing 
and wrestling champions traveled from town to town 


participating in exhibition bouts and giving lessons. Books 
on these subjects were popular, particularly in the sixteenth 
century. Even Albrecht Diirer wrote a work on fencing. 
This manuscript by Paulus Hector Mair (1517-79) contains 
242 vivid illustrations depicting duels with swords, with 
halberds, and even with toothed sickles. The author died 
a tragic death: after forty-four years in service to the city 
of Augsburg, he was hanged for misappropriation of 
public funds. 


Illustrations 






























































Icljfirti '^yirwenJen , it< Xrrhvomltn (ij a\\ mib 

gvXm w eve If , AuSjV rm vov jytp^m vivT rtiV 'Vflfncn 
^tnitv IjeVAttpr vollen mart die vm* micv vtcljtcl*, 
Aic tnenmn fu cejfyg^tf ^tt(?lcn , trtemntij nfevc 

allcii IWclnJc von vttjn ftmhiA^cmAi'[)f vPccAe auA) 

AicjVlUn aljo triiF (JvoWn rmvr vtnt>wrnAe VnA <Mr vm 

yecmo Jelynjcfnen ifPcm Jaf CS Mm? \jaPjkct } oiengi 

J jcjcijwtriAev wi lejscv , handle jy-jCCI m plenum Amrl) 
cn 4'm^iv^rtjVi”, *vnA jVmAe cm (jcvr Jiijclkf Ia-h^c ^cih 
vn vAfsen vcvWAvt kcl^dhcn , , 

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^cAcnrlt vsnt’r \nl tvtinacys Javm cvfd 


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as vr.Jcvavalvtt wixt ,^u 


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14. /tew < 5 / 

Senftenberg, Veit Wolff von: Kriegserfindungen. 
(Military Inventions.) Second half of sixteenth century. 

Mining of a fortress. 

Military historians consider Veit Wolff von Senftenberg a 
leading authority on artillery of his day. Around 1570 he 
wrote Kriegserfindungen (Military Inventions), based on his 
own experience and designed to help defeat the Turks, 


from whose attacks Senftenberg himself had suffered. 

To assure secrecy he did not allow the work to be printed. 
This Dresden copy, a parchment manuscript with informa¬ 
tive, colorful pictures, describes the different weapons 
and their most effective use. In fighting the Turks, poison¬ 
ing the water supply was considered permissible and an 
effective and secure communication network was essential. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 






















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iiitt^^lirfcttfrrrr. rt ^,'wtontutow^rtWcr' 

TdNiwSMiuV" (ii it '(i'jm iiwicfitw Wifi wuil 

mUACK'OHOltf 


idmicljucrw iviiOauijimtoAfiC^o »w« nwu 
rfi&urc u vm< ffai. vut MWimuroi infcm iiie ww,tr 
iuiuVHfiu iy<«;touo»v<r ton divmtUf) mf> jicfiiV.O 
pivTfi i\v vife Sfi wrft^crn ivlK.Jcilmt'ii fd( 


\i(V&w ift tuv< uiiiu n^WfrK jicfi < vftlu 
iiiu^vnuN uut^a1(| o?Cr ivoUy im\t v<nu vlcl 
ftM ffac tvirtf <$ Irnfattycmaci? yDU; 
(xifdn vf^DUws Wftijjis aimtimwpr (I 




15. Item 62 

Loeneyss, Georg Engelhart: Griindlicher Bericht 
und Ordnung der Gebisse. (Thorough Report on 
Equestrian Dentistry.) 1576. 

A young stallion and the bit. 

This manuscript, magnificently bound by Jakob Krause, 
belonged to Elector August’s private library. The author was 
from 1523 to 1584 both the elector’s equerry and the person 


responsible for arranging all official court functions. 

His Della cavalleria, continually reprinted into the eigh¬ 
teenth century, was the summation of his experience 
in these fields. The Dresden manuscript depicts not only 
the numerous horse bits, reins, muzzles, and grooming 
implements, but also the horses themselves, outfitted with 
saddles, ornamental harnesses, and blankets, and 
a complete tournament. 


Illustrations 
































6 4 . 



XX 

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1 6. Item 67 

Harriot, Thomas: Customs of the Savages in Virginia. 
Frankfurt am Main, 1590. 

Indian settlement. 

Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) was official surveyor for 
the expedition led by Sir Richard Grenville in 1585-86 to 
Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North 
Carolina. This German edition, published in Frankfurt by 
Theodor de Bry in 1590, two years after the first edition 


appeared in London, was dedicated by the publisher to 
Saxon elector Christian I (1560—91). Harriot presents a vivid 
picture of the conditions he observed in this part of the 
New World, especially the natural resources and their possi¬ 
ble use by English settlers, as well as the habits and customs 
of the native inhabitants. The twenty-three full-page 
engravings, after originals by the Dutch artist Johann With, 
and hand colored in the Dresden exemplar, add to the 
value of this work. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 









































ij. Item 68 

Bretschneider, Daniel: Ein Buch von allerlei 
Inventionen zu Schlittenfahrten. (A Book of Various 
Inventions for Sled Travel.) Dresden, 1602. 

Sled with astronomer. 

In 1602 the Dresden painter Daniel Bretschneider presented 
Elector Christian II with several designs for sleds. He was 
awarded 50 guilders for his efforts. Emulating the great 
courts of France, Italy, England, and Spain, the Saxon rulers 


used sleds of the best design in opulent pageants. Birthdays, 
weddings, baptisms, and carnivals were occasions to 
stage such events, which often had biblical, mythological, 
and exotic themes, as well as everyday motifs celebrating 
the trades of Saxony, such as the mining industry. These 
pageants played an important role in enhancing the ruler’s 
image before his subjects and other rulers. This custom is 
well documented, in part by the survival of so many Saxon 
illustrated manuscripts of the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. 


Illustrations 










18. Item 69 

Tierhatz auf dem Altmarkt zu Dresden. (Animal Chase in 
Dresden’s Altmarkt.) 1609. 

The boar chase. 

The event documented in this illustrated manuscript 
appears bizarre to us today. Eight large leaves depict the 
Altmarkt in Dresden at carnival time, entirely surrounded 
by buildings, with the City Hall (Rathaus) to the north. 


Animals, including deer, boar, bears, wolves, rabbits, 
wildcats, foxes and raccoons, were brought in, chased, and 
killed before hundreds of spectators. The show, in this case 
a boar hunt, culminated in a battle between bears and 
bulls. Such public chases offered city dwellers the 
opportunity to experience the thrill of the hunt enjoyed 
for centuries by the court. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 















































19* Item yo 

Division Tables, c. 1570. Binding by Jakob Krause, with 
electoral coat of arms. 

Shortly after Elector August began collecting books, 
he hired Jakob Krause, one of the best Renaissance book¬ 
binders. Krause (1526/27-85) was born in Zwickau. After 
completing his bookbinding apprenticeship, he improved 
his skills in Wittenberg and in France. He served for several 
years as a binder to the renowned merchant house of 
Fugger in Augsburg. In 1566 he came to Dresden, where 


he eventually produced more than a thousand magnificent 
bindings. In addition, he purchased books for the elector, 
visiting the trade fairs in Frankfurt and Leipzig. Krause’s 
bindings are distinguished by meticulous workmanship and 
rich decoration. They exemplify German bookbinding style 
as practiced in Wittenberg, but incorporating French, 
Italian, and oriental motifs, which Krause merged with his 
own style. This example shows his skill in ornamentation 
and chasing. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 




















20 . Item yi 

Paul, Simon: Postilla. Magdeburg, 1572. Binding by 
Urban Koblitz. 

With the richly ornamental and colorful binding of this 
volume, Urban Koblitz demonstrates that he was among 
the outstanding bookbinders in Saxony, along with 
Jakob Krause and Caspar Meuser (see figures 19 and 21). 
All that is known of him is that he worked in Dresden 
and later in Leipzig. 


xi. Item J4 

Betbiichlein fur allerlei Anliegen. (Small Prayer Book for All 
Occasions.) c. 1580. Heart-shaped binding by Caspar Meuser. 

Caspar Meuser (1550-93) was an apprentice of Jakob 
Krause and, from 1574, Krause’s successor in the court 
bindery. He used the panels and stamps designed by 
Krause, but evolved his own style, characterized by profuse 
vinework. This heart-shaped prayerbook, designed for 
Anna, the wife of Elector August, is a particularly fine 
example of his artistry. 


Illustrations 

























22 . Item 80 

Bretschneider, Daniel: Contrafactur des Ringrennens 
und anderer Ritterspiele auf Christians fiirstlichem Beilager 
am 25. April Anno [15)82 in Dresden. (Contrafactum of 
the Ring Competition and Other Knightly Games at the 
Princely Consummation of Christian’s Marriage on April 25 
of the Year [15)82 in Dresden.) Dresden, c. 1582. 

Procession with members of the Hofkapelle 
dressed as women. 

The Dresden court had a long and splendid tradition 
of designing fancy-dress festivals in the city. Members 


of the Hofkapelle not only performed as musicians in the 
festival processions, but also dressed in lavish costumes as 
actors. The item on display, originally a scroll and later 
bound in book form, describes the ceremonies on the occa¬ 
sion of an electoral wedding. Elector August is preceded 
here by enchained figures representing Death, the Devil, 
Justice, two Heralds, and the Muses. Members of the 
Hofkapelle with their instruments can be identified in the 
procession. The instruments were described a generation 
later by Michael Praetorius in his Syntagma musicum. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 





















2,3. Item 8 p 

Collection of Portraits of the Counts of Saxony. Strong, Saxon elector and king of Poland. The long rule 

Seventeenth century. (1611-56) of Elector Johann Georg I (1585-1656), dominated 

by the Thirty Years’ War, brought to an end Saxony’s role 
Elector Johann Georg I. as a power in Europe. 

This portrait of the elector is one in a series of fifty-two 
impressive miniatures on vellum depicting Saxony’s rulers 
from the sixteenth century on. Johann Georg I 
commissioned the miniatures, which took as their models 
the late sixteenth-century life-size portraits hanging at 
court. Later miniatures carried the series to the end of the 
seventeenth century in the representation of August the 


Illustrations 



















Z4* Item 103 

Biblia. Ubersetzt von Martin Luther. (The Bible. Translated 
by Martin Luther.) Nuremberg, 1652. 

Bible of Elector Moritz of Sachsen-Zeitz, with his 
coat of arms. 

The velvet-bound Bible on display is an example of the 
book treasures that came to the Dresden Court Library. 

The head of the Albertinian line, Elector Johann Georg I, 
proclaimed that upon his death Saxony should be 


divided among his four sons. His youngest son, Moritz 
(1619—81), became the ruler of the new duchy of Sachsen- 
Zeitz. Although this may have been a politically dubious 
decision, the duchy benefited culturally. The new 
duke’s dynamic building program soon remedied the 
destruction caused by the Thirty Years’ War. Moritz 
Castle (Moritzburg) in Zeitz was an early example 
of baroque architecture. The duke also supported the 
arts and music. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 














73 - 


2 Item 108 

Atlas Royal. Yol. i. Amsterdam, 1707. 

Queen Anne of England. 

This unique atlas testifies to both the love of splendor and 
the interest in science of August the Strong (1670-1733). 
The atlas was produced for him in Amsterdam, once 
the center of the map trade, in 1706-10. In nineteen large- 
format morocco volumes, the atlas contains roughly 1,400 
beautifully illuminated, printed or hand-drawn leaves 


(maps, views, plans, portraits), primarily of Dutch and 
French—less often of Italian, English, or German— 
origin dating to the seventeenth and early eighteenth 
centuries. The volume on display contains fifty priceless, 
masterfully tinted engravings, depicting English court 
dress around 1700. 


Illustrations 






















2 . 6 . Item iop 

Poppelmann, Matthaus Daniel: Entwurf fur einen 
Zwingerpavillon. (Draft for a Zwinger pavilion.) 

Dresden, 1712-13. 

The Dresden Zwinger, a masterpiece of baroque architec¬ 
ture, would have been inconceivable without the initiative 
and influence of August the Strong. Two of the fore¬ 
most artists of the era, the architect Matthaus Daniel 
Poppelmann (1662-1736) and the sculptor Balthasar 
Permoser (1651-1732), executed his concept. Initially, 


the project was to involve merely the construction of an 
orangery in the Zwinger section of the fortress complex. 

But the plans grew more elaborate in conjunction with 
the proposed construction of a new castle. Original plans 
in the Saxon State Library show the grand scale of the over¬ 
all concept, of which only the Zwinger was realized, in 
modified form. The rampart shown here as a rectangular 
structure, for example, was ultimately built in a more 
graceful oval form. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 



































































































































































xj. Item uy 

Bach, Johann Sebastian: Missa (h moll: Kyrie und 
Gloria). Originaler Stimmensatz. (Mass in B Minor: Kyrie 
and Gloria. Original Vocal Part.) Leipzig, 1733. 

Manuscript score. 

From his arrival in Dresden in 1717, Bach maintained life¬ 
long contact with the court and the Hofkapelle, where 
the highest musical standards found expression. After the 
death of Hofkapellmeister Heinichen in 1729 and the 
appointment of J. A. Hasse as his replacement, Bach (who 


was not considered for the position for religious reasons) 
applied for a court appointment. To his application he 
appended a part of his Mass in B Minor. Pressed for time, 
Bach enlisted his wife and eldest son in transcribing the 
work. The date of the first Dresden performance of this 
brilliant work has never been determined. Flowever, since 
1736 the cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig has 
carried the title of “composer to the court of the king of 
Poland and the elector of Saxony.” 


Illustrations 














z8. Item 123 

Merian, Maria Sibylla: Metamorphosis insectorum 
Surinamensium. (Metamorphosis of the Insects of 
Surinam.) Amsterdam, 1705. 

Jasmine bush with butterfly and snake. 

In 1699 a woman set out on a journey. Her destination 
was unusual and her purpose even more so: Maria Sibylla 
Merian (1647-1717) journeyed from Holland to Surinam 
to study and depict insects. The results of her two-year 
stay in the jungle were published in 1705 in a large-format 
folio, which earned her a place of honor among 
naturalists. Trained as a painter and obsessed with 
a desire for knowledge, she studied and drew the insects 


in their various developmental stages and the plants she 
found them on. The Saxon State Library is fortunate 
to own one of the few surviving copies of Merian’s work, 
one colored by the author-artist herself. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 




29 . Item 138 

Plans et elevations des differentes eglises. (Plans and 
Elevations of Various Churches.) First half of eighteenth 
century. 

Original cross-sectional drawing of the Frauenkirche 
by Georg Bdhr. 

Known as the Stone Bell, the dome of the Frauenkirche 
rose above the inner city of Dresden for more than two 
centuries until it collapsed during the bombing at the end 
of World War II. A serious commitment has recently been 
made to rebuild this most important example of Protestant 
church architecture, giving hope that the cherished 
landmark will once again dominate Dresden’s skyline by 


the city’s eight-hundredth anniversary in 2006. The church 
is the work of Georg Bahr (1666-1738), one of the great 
German baroque builders, noted for his unique style in 
Protestant architecture. In keeping with the special features 
of Protestant worship, he created a central structure in 
which the altar, pulpit, baptismal font, and organ were all 
located in full view of the congregation beneath the bell¬ 
shaped stone dome. Shown here is the original drawing 
with handwritten approval (dated 26 June 1726) by Count 
August Christoph von Wackerbarth, superintendent of 
Saxon architecture. Construction was begun two months 
later. The church was dedicated in 1734, but the last 
stone was not laid until 1743. 


Illustrations 








































































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30 . Item 139 

Wagner, Richard: Das Liebesmahl der Apostel. Biblische 
Szene fur Mannerstimmen und grofles Orchester. 

(The Love Feast of the Apostles. Biblical Scene for Male 
Voices and Large Orchestra.) Autograph Score. 

Dresden, 1843. 

Richard Wagner, Hofkapellmeister in Dresden from 1842 
until his flight in 1849, wrote this unique work as a 


“stereophonic” dialogue among several choir groups, 
followed by the entrance of full orchestra. It had its 
premiere under his direction at the Dresden Frauenkirche 
on 6 July 1843. Twelve hundred Saxon singers are said 
to have participated in the choirs, and the premiere was 
an extraordinary success. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 





















































































































31 . Item 141 

Reinhold, Friedrich Johann Christian: Uniformen 
der kurfurstlich sachsischen Armee. (Uniforms of the Army 
of the Electorate of Saxony.) 1791. 

City commander and adjutant on the Neumarkt. 
Dresden, the capital of Albertinian Saxony since 1485, 
was expanded into a fortress in the sixteenth century. It was 
protected by the citizenry until 1587, when a regular 


garrison was established. Elector Johann Georg III (1647-91) 
created a standing army in 1682, and the office of comman¬ 
dant was created for Dresden in 1692. One of the duties of 
the commandant and his adjutants was opening and closing 
three city gates and lowering and raising the drawbridges. 
The illustration shows the commandant and adjutant, over¬ 
sized, in colorful uniform, in the Dresden Neumarkt, with 
the Frauenkirche and the Art Gallery to the left. 


Illustrations 










































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32 . Item 143 

Dresden. View of the City from the Southwest. End of 
eighteenth century. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Dresden 
painter Christian Gottlieb Hammer (1779-1864) depicted 
his city from a particularly attractive perspective. From 
the confluence of the Weisseritz and Elbe Rivers, he had 
a view of both parts of the city: to the left, the Japanese 
Palace (home of the Dresden Court Library since 1786), 


the Neustadt (New Town), and the Elbe River bridge 
(above it the gardens and buildings of the Briihlian terrace 
and below, the bell tower of the Frauenkirche); to the 
right, the steeple and nave of the Catholic Hofkirche, the 
castle tower (the tallest city edifice), and the steeple of 
the Kreuzkirche in the background. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 
















Pos exemplaria Qrxca 
Noclurtia verfate mam, verfate diurna. 

H 0 R A T. ART. POET. 


1755. 


33. Item 144 

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim: Gedanken iiber 
die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke. (Thoughts 
on the Imitation of Greek Works.) Friedrichstadt 
near Dresden, 1755. 

Title page. 

This was the first publication of Johann Joachim 
Winckelmann (1717-68), a mere forty-page brochure, of 
which fifty copies were printed. As a result, the author 


became famous overnight in the intellectual and artistic 
world. Winckelmann founded the science of archaeology 
and the modern study of art with this work and his 1764 
Dresden publication, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums. 
Pivotal to his insights was his study of archaeological 
literature and of the ancient sculpture in the Dresden art 
museum—opportunities afforded to him by his seven-year 
residence in Dresden and his tenure as librarian to 
Heinrich Count von Biinau. 


Illustrations 


















82. 



34 * Item 147 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: Letter to Johann 
Gottlob von Quandt. Weimar, 9 June 1831. 

In the course of his life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 
(1749-1832) stayed several times in Dresden. As a student 
at Leipzig, he visited the city in March 1768, recalling 
decades later in his Dichtung und Wahrheit the deep impres¬ 
sion the Art Gallery had made on him. On a journey to 
Silesia, he visited the Electoral Library on 30 July 1790, 
as can be seen from his entry in the guest book, which 


is still in existence. Besides other visits in 1794, 1810, and 
1813, Goethe maintained a host of written contacts, 
officially with the court and privately with the intellectual 
elite of Dresden. In the letter of 9 June 1831, the poet 
writes to the renowned art scholar and collector, Johann 
Gottlob von Quandt (1787-1859), informing him of 
a shipment of paintings by Weimar artists to Dresden. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 








35- Item 159 

Plantae selectae vivis coloribus depictae. (Selected Plants 
Shown in True-to-Life Colors.) Centuria 1. 1785-95. 

Pitcairnia (Bromeliaceae). 

The Saxon State Library owns a unique compendium in 
nine folio volumes, each with roughly one hundred original 
pictures, of the native and foreign plants raised in the 
gardens and greenhouses of Pillnitz Castle, the summer 
residence of the Saxon rulers, around 1800. This extraordi¬ 
nary compilation was proposed and financed by Elector 


Friedrich August III (1750-1827), who was himself an 
amateur botanist. Desiring that the plants be depicted 
faithfully, in a manner both scientifically accurate and artis¬ 
tically appealing, he appointed as “botanical court painters” 
artists who were already recognized as talented plant 
painters, finding them among the graduates of his own 
Dresden Academy of Art. The final volume was completed 
in 1839, under King Friedrich August II, to the same high 
standards established in 1785 with volume 1. 


Illustrations 












3 6. Item 174 

Family Album of Johann Gottlieb Schwender. 1795-1810. 

View from the Elbe Bridge toward the eastern 
part of the city. 

Family albums (Stammbucher) provide remarkable insights 
into the emotional lives of our ancestors. Known since the 
sixteenth century and originally popular primarily among 
the nobility, intellectuals, and students, these books evolved 
in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into the 
“monuments to friendship” common in all social classes. 


Between friends and acquaintances it was common to ask 
for, and have entered into these books, thoughtful sayings, 
often in combination with paintings, drawings, and even 
embroidery, since women also eagerly participated in this 
custom. The specimen on display, from around 1800, 
belonged to a Dresden construction official. His friends 
and acquaintances were in large part architects and artists. 
For this reason, some of the drawings are of high quality, 
such as the view from the Elbe Bridge. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 

























37- Item 176 

Rost, G. E.: Trachten der Berg- und Hiittenleute im 
Konigreich Sachsen. (Traditional Dress of the Mining and 
Metallurgical Workers in the Kingdom of Saxony.) c. 1830. 

Metalworker in work clothes. 

Since the Middle Ages, mining had been the major basis 
for Saxony’s wealth, the power of its rulers, and its cultural 
development. Silver was mined in the Erzgebirge, primarily 
for coinage, from the twelfth century on. Later tin, copper, 
iron, coal, cobalt, alum, and small amounts of gold 


were mined as well. G. E. Rost documented the various 
aspects of the miner’s life, his rich festive dress, his 
work clothes, his workplace, and his tools, in a book 
containing plates of considerable significance to 
students of cultural history. 


Illustrations 





























86 . 



38 . Item 1/8 

Schumann, Robert: Des Sennen Abschied. (Senn’s 
Farewell.) Lyrics by Friedrich Schiller. No. 22 from “Songs 
for the Young,” Opus 79. Dresden, undated. 

Second part of the song in manuscript, first draft. 

Robert and Clara Schumann lived in Dresden from 1844 
to 1850. Robert, however, could not find a permanent 
position in the city, where he directed a choir. Clara, 
despite the birth of several children during this period, 
provided for the family by giving concerts. Nevertheless, 
the couple found ample intellectual and artistic inspiration, 
as is shown by the number of important compositions 


that Robert Schumann created in Dresden. The leaf on 
display is not only a testimony to Schumann’s Dresden 
creativity but also a historical document. At the bottom 
of the page the composer noted: “interrupted by the alarm 
bells on May 3, 1849.” On this day there began a revolt 
of citizens, after the failure of which Richard Wagner, along 
with the great architect Gottfried Semper and other 
notable figures, deserted Dresden. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 














































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39- Item 179 

Brahms, Johannes: An ein Veilchen. Text von Ludwig 
Holty. Lied fur eine Singstimme und Klavier, op. 49,2. 

(To a Violet. Lyrics by Ludwig Holty. Song for Voice 
and Piano, opus 49.2.) Before 1872. 

Manuscript, final copy. 

On 13 June 1845, soon after the birth of their third daughter 
on 11 March, Robert and Clara Schumann began an album 
in Dresden “to our chddren for faithful safekeeping. 

It held memorabilia (locks of hair, drawings, dried flowers, 
poems, compositions, letters) from their closest friends and 
relatives. Later, particularly after Roberts death, Clara 


added autograph music by important composers whom she 
had never met, including a draft leaf by Beethoven. A late 
addition to the album is the autograph score by Johannes 
Brahms, who as a youth of twenty was taken into the inner 
circle of the family and enthusiastically encouraged in com¬ 
posing by Robert. According to Clara’s notation in the 
upper righthand corner of page 1, Brahms presented her the 
final copy of his 1868 song (Opus 49.2), on ornamental 
paper, on 13 September 1872, her birthday. It was unsigned, 
so Clara later added his name as well (at the end of the 
manuscript, on page 4). In 1934 the Saxon State Library 
acquired this Dresden album from Schumann’s grandsons. 


Illustrations 






























































40 . Item 182 

Falnameh. Persia. End of the sixteenth century. 
Muhammad splits the moon. 

In 1831, when Leipzig orientalist Heinrich Fleischer pub¬ 
lished his catalog of oriental manuscripts in the Royal 
Public Library, he included a falnameh, a Persian book 
of prophesies. Such books were used to predict the future, 
for example, the course of a journey or the success of a 


business deal. It is not known how this precious manuscript 
came into the possession of the library; a note in it indi¬ 
cates that the manuscript came to Vienna around 1700 
during the Turkish wars. The varying styles of painting, 
artistic quality, format, and design of the text suggest that 
the manuscript was compiled from leaves of various 
origin, probably based in part on Persian models in Turkey. 
It can be dated to the second half of the sixteenth century. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 




































Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


Selected by Manfred Muhlner 

Manuscripts from the Medieval-Renaissance 

1. 

Evangelia dominicalia et festivalia. (Lord’s Day and 
Feast Day Gospels.) Tenth century. 189 leaves. Vellum. 

24 x 20 cm. 

a: Leaves 59b-6oa 

Latin Gospel passage used in Catholic Mass. 

2. See figure 1. 

Machsor mechol haschana. (Jewish Holy Day Prayer Book 
for the Whole Year.) Germany, c. 1290. 293 leaves. Vellum. 
55 x 4 6 cm. 

a: Leaves 59b-6oa 

Moses receives the Ten Commandments. 

3 - 

Bernardus Guidonis: De regibus Lrancorum. (About the 
Kings of the Lranks.) Erance, fourteenth century. 30 leaves. 
Vellum. 28 x 22 cm. 
a: Leaves i9b-2oa 

Genealogy of the French kings from the fifth to the 
fourteenth century. 

4 - 

Ovid: Metamorphoseon libri XV. (The Fifteen Books of 
the Metamorphoses.) Italy, fourteenth century. 149 leaves. 
Vellum. 26 x 16 cm. 
a: Leaves 88b-89a 
Ovid’s metamorphoses. 


5 - 

Romain, Henri: Gestes et faits des anciens. (Acts 
and Deeds of the Ancients.) Erance, beginning of fifteenth 
century. 199 leaves. Vellum. 41 x 29 cm. 
a: Leaves 3b-4a 

Chronology of the ancient world with a depiction 
of the building of Rome. 

6 . See figure 2. 

Petrarca, Lrancesco: Des remedes de l’une et l’autre 
fortune. (Of Remedies for fortune Fair and Foul.) France, 
mid-fifteenth century. 206 leaves. Vellum. 41 x 29 cm. 

A: Leaves 14b-! 5a 

Francesco Petrarca and a disciple at home. 

7 - 

Annales Veterocellenses, with continuation to the 
year 1493. (Annals of Altzella.) Germany, end of fifteenth 
century. 32 leaves. 32.5 x 22.5 cm. 
a: Leaves 4b—5a 

Manuscript from Altzella, the most important medieval 
cloister in the margraviate of Meissen. 

8 . See figure 4. 

Boccaccio, Giovanni: Des cas des nobles hommes 
et femmes. (Of the Fate of Illustrious Men and Women.) 
France, c. 1520. Vol. 2. 94 leaves. Vellum. 51 x 37 cm. 
a: Leaves ib—2a 
Boccaccio and his audience. 

9 - 

Kronika Czechu od poczatku yasyku Czeske. (Chronicle 
of Czechs from the Beginning of the Czech Language.) 
Bohemia, 1527. 97 leaves. Vellum. 51 x 37 cm. 
a: Leaves 92b-93a 
The history of Bohemia. 


Incunabula: Examples of Early Printing 


10. 

Horatius Flaccus, Quintus: Opera. (Works.) Florence, 
1482. 272 leaves. 29 x 22 cm. 

a: Beginning of the first book 
Florentine printing of Horace’s Works, 1482. 

11. 

Chroniques de France. (Chronicles of France.) Vol. 3. 

Paris, 1493. 264 leaves. 35 x 27.5 cm. 

A: Leaves i64b-i65a 

A fifieenth century chronicle of France, by the 
Benedictine monk Jean Chartier. 

12.. See figure 4. 

Gaffurius (Gafori), Franchinus: Practica musicae. 

(The Performance of Music.) Milan, 1496. 111 leaves. 
Vellum. 27.5 x 19 cm. 

a: Beginning of the first book 

13 - 

Missale Misnense. (Meissen Missal.) Speyer, c. 1498. 

238 leaves. Vellum. 38 x 29 cm. 

a: Vellum leaf, inserted without numbering 
Missal for the Meissen diocese, from the printing shop 
of Peter Drach. 

14. 

Danse macabre. (Dance of Death.) Troyes, after 1500. 

40 leaves. 26 x 19.5 cm. 
a: Leaves a ii-a iii 

Old French Dance of Death poem, with colored woodcuts. 

The Reformation in Sixteenth Century Germany 

15. See figure 3. 

Durer, Albrecht: Passio Domini Nostri Jesu. 

(The Passion of Our Lord Jesus.) Nuremberg, 1511. 

46 leaves. 49 x 33 cm. 

A: Leaves 24b-25a 

The crucifiction by Albrecht Durer. 


1 6. See figure 6. 

Pfinzing, Melchior: Theuerdank. Augsburg, 1519. 

580 pages. 35 x 26.5 cm. 
a: Pages 364-365 

Theuerdank, an allegorical poem by Emperor 
Maximilian I. 

17- 

Annaberger Chorbuch Nr. 2. Sachsische Musikhandschrift. 
(Annaberg Choir Book No. 2. Saxon Music Manuscript.) 
First third of sixteenth century. 261 leaves. 40 x 28 cm. 
a: Leaf 112 

Example of the musical usage of the Church in central 
Germany shortly before the Reformation. 

18. 

Emser, Hieronymus: Divi Bennonis Misnensis quondam 
Episcopi vita. (The Life of Saint Benno, Former Bishop 
of Meissen.) Leipzig, 1512. 17 leaves. 30 x 20 cm. 
a: Title page 

Biography of Bishop Benno of Meissen (d. 1106 ), 

Saxony’s only saint. 

19. See figure 7. 

Wahrhaftige Abcontrafactur und Bildnis aller 
Grofherzogen von Sachsen. (Authentic Representations 
and Portraiture of All the Grand Dukes of Saxony.) 
Dresden, 1586. 44 leaves. Vellum. 21 x 16 cm. 
a: Leaf 24a 

Portrait of Elector Friedrich the Wise. 

20. 

Luther, Martin: Von der Freiheit eines 
Christenmenschen. (On the Freedom of a Christian.) 
Wittenberg, 1520. 12 leaves. 20 x 15 cm. 
a: Title page 

The freedom of the new belief. 

21. 

Luther, Martin: Von deni babylonischen Gefangnis 
der Kirche. (On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.) 
Wittenberg, 1520. 71 leaves. 21 x 15.5 cm. 

a: Title page, with portrait of the Reformer 
Examination of Roman Catholic sacramental 
doctrine. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


22 . 

Luther, Martin: An den christlichen Adel deutscher 
Nation. Von des christlichen Standes Besserung. (To the 
Christian Nobility of the German Nation. On the 
Reformation of the Christian Class.) Wittenberg, 1520. 

35 leaves. 21 x 15.5 cm. 
a: Title page 

Comprehensive program for the reform of the Church. 

23. 

Passional Christi und Antichristi. (Passion of the Christ 
and Antichrist.) Wittenberg, 1521. 14 leaves. 20 x 14 cm. 
a: Pages 15-16. 

Renowned woodcut series by Lucas Cranach the Elder 
(1472-1553), a friend of Luther. 

24. 

Luther, Martin: Ordnung eines gemeinen Kastens. 
Ratschlag, wie die geistlichen Giiter zu handeln sind. 
(Establishment of a Common Fund. Advice on 
How to Handle Ecclesiastical Property.) Wittenberg, 

1523. 12 leaves. 20 x 15.5 cm. 
a: Title page 

On the use of Church property for schools and caring 
for the poor. 

25. 

Luther, Martin: An die Ratsherren aller Stadte deutsches 
Landes: daE sie christliche Schulen aufrichten und halten 
sollen. (Call to the Councilmen of All Cities of Germany 
to Erect and Maintain Christian Schools.) Wittenberg, 

1524. 19 leaves. 21 x 15 cm. 
a: Title page 

A declaration of belief in the humanistic ideal 
of education. 

26. 

Handlung, Artikel und Instruction von alien Rotten 
und Haufen der Bauern. (Act, Articles and Instruction 
Concerning All Gangs and Mobs of Farmers.) 1525. 

6 leaves. 18 x 14 cm. 
a: Title page 

Twelve articles by the Swabian peasants made during 
the Peasant’s War, 1524—1526. 


27. 

Luther, Martin: Wider die morderischen und 
rauberischen Rotten der Bauern. (Against the Murdering 
and Robbing Gangs of Farmers.) Wittenberg, 1525. 

4 leaves. 20 x 15 cm. 

A: Title page 

Call on rulers to put down the revolt. 

28. 

Sachsisches Stammbuch. Sammlung von Bildnissen 
sachsischer Fiirsten. (Saxon Genealogy. Collection 
of Portraits of Saxon Electors.) c. 1550. 

116 leaves. 42 x 28 cm. 

a: The electors Friedrich the Wise and 
Johann the Constant 

The album extends from the electors of legendary times 
to Elector Moritz of Saxony. 

29. 

Luther, Martin: Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des 
Gottesdienstes. (German Masses and Order of the Worship 
Service.) Wittenberg, 1526. 24 leaves. 18 x 14 cm. 
a: Title page 

Renewal of the worship service. 

30. 

Luther, Martin: Trostschrift an die Christen zu Halle. 
Eigenhandiges Manuskript. (Consolation for the Christians 
of Halle. Autograph manuscript.) Wittenberg, 1527. 

62 leaves. 21 x 16 cm. 
a: Leaf na 

Codex, with manuscripts by Martin Luther. 

3 i- 

Luther, Martin: Trostschrift an die Christen zu Halle. 
(Consolation for the Christians of Halle.) Wittenberg, 

1527. 14 leaves. 18 x 15 cm. 
a: Title page 

Printed copy of the manuscript shown as item 30. 

32. 

Luther, Martin: Deutscher Katechismus. (German 
Catechism.) Wittenberg, 1530. 75 leaves. 19 x 15.5 cm. 
a: Leaves 42b-43a 
Instruction for Protestant pastors. 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


33 - 

Luther, Martin: Enchiridion. Der kleine Katechismus. 
(Enchiridion. The Small Catechism.) Leipzig, 1561. 

140 leaves. 16 x 11 cm. 
a: Leaf 70b 

The sacrament of baptism. 

34. See figure 8. 

Luther, Martin: Autograph letter to Duchess Katharina 
of Saxony. Wittenberg, 28 July 1539. 1 leaf. 33 x 21.5 cm. 
a: Autograph letter 

Letter from Luther to Duchess Katharina of Saxony. 

35 - 

Imagines Electorum Saxoniae. (Images of the Electors 
of Saxony.) Wittenberg, 1570. 11 leaves. 20 x 15.5 cm. 
a: Portrait of Elector Johann Friedrich the 
Magnanimous 

Luther’s regent and a defender of the Reformation. 

36. 

Melanchthon, Philipp: Autograph letter to Nikolaus 
von Amsdorf. 23 September 1546. 1 leaf. 32 x 21.5 cm. 

Melanchthon (1497-1560) and Amsdorf (1485-1565) were 
Luther’s closest colleagues. 

37 - 

Spangenberg, Johann: Evangelisches Kirchengesangbuch. 
(Protestant Hymnal.) Magdeburg, 1545. 718 leaves. 

33 x 24 cm. 

a: Pages 532-533 

Earliest and most important collection of liturgical 
music for the Protestant religious service. 

38. 

Das Leben und die ganze evangelische Historic von 
Jesu Christo. (The Life and Complete Protestant History 
of Jesus Christ.) Sixteenth century. Vellum. 118 leaves. 

19 x 14 cm. 

a: Leaves 6ob-6ia 

Prayer book with colored woodcuts from the 
time ofDiirer. 


The Bible 

39 - 

L’apocalipse mon seigneur S. Jehan. (The Apocalypse 
of My Lord Saint John.) France, fourteenth century. 
Vellum. 56 leaves. 25 x 20 cm. 
a: Leaves 33b-34a 

The Apocalypse of Saint John, with 72 miniatures from 
a Lotharingian scriptorium. 

40. 

The New Testament in the English Translation by John 
Wycliffe. England, beginning of fifteenth century. 
Vellum. 414 leaves. 18 x 15 cm. 
a: Pages 326-327 

John Wyclijfe (c. 1528—84) translated the Bible into 
colloquial English. 

41. 

Deutsche Historienbibel. (German Historical Bible.) 
Germany, beginning of fifteenth century. 282 leaves. 

42 x 32.5 cm. 

a: Pages 138-139 

Popular treatment of biblical texts. 

42. 

Biblia. Mit Glossen nach den Postillen des Nicolaus von 
Lyra. Niederdeutsch. (The Bible. With commentaries 
based on the Postillae of Nicholas of Lyra. Low German.) 
Cologne, c. 1478. 514 leaves. 37 x 29 cm. 
a: Job/Proverbs 

Early Low German printing of the Bible by Heinrich 
Quentell, with 125 colored woodcuts. 

43. See figure 9. 

Biblia. (The Bible.) Venice, 1479. 451 leaves. Vellum. 

34 x 23.5 cm. 

a: Beginning of Genesis 
A Bible printed by Nikolaus Jenson. 

44. 

Biblia polyglotta Hebraica, Chaldaica, Graeca et Latina. 
(Polyglot Bible in Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek, and Latin.) 
Vol. 1. Alcala de Henares, Spain, 1514. 300 leaves. 

37 x 30 cm. 
a: Leaf xii 

Printing of the 600 copies of this Bible cost 50,000 
gold guilders. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


45 - 

Novum Testamentum omne ab Erasmo Roterdamo. 
(Complete New Testament by Erasmus of Rotterdam.) 
Basel, 1519. 566 leaves. 34 x 24 cm. 

a: Leaves iio-m, Beginning of the Gospel of Matthew 
Translation by Erasmus of the original Greek text. 

Luther translated the New Testament from this. 

46. 

Das Neue Testament deutsch. In der Ubersetzung 
von Martin Luther. (The New Testament in German. 
Translated by Martin Luther.) Wittenberg, 1522. 

203 leaves. 29 x 20.5 cm. 
a: Leaves nib-n2a 

The translation was made in only eleven weeks, during 
Luther’s stay at Wartburg Castle in 1521—22. 

47 - 

Die ganze Bibel, das ist alle Bucher Altes und Neues 
Testament. (The Entire Bible, That Is, Every Book of the Old 
and New Testaments.) Zurich, 1531. 334, 315 leaves. 37 x 26 cm. 
a: Pages 228-29 

Deluxe edition of the Zurich Bible, with illustrations 
by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497—1543). 

48. See figure 10. 

Biblia deutsch. Ubersetzt von Martin Luther. (The Bible 
in German. Translated by Martin Luther.) Wittenberg, 

1534. 928 leaves. 30 x 26.5 cm. 
a: Frontispiece and title page 
Luther’s German Translation ofithe Bible. 

49 - 

Biblia, das ist die ganze Heilige Schrift deutsch. 

(The Bible, That Is, the Entire Holy Scripture in German.) 
Frankfurt am Main, 1561. 410 leaves. 40 x 28 cm. 
a: Leaf 241a, Beginning of the New Testament 
The woodcuts were created by the Nuremberg 
artist Virgil Solis (1514—1568). 

50. 

Biblia. Die ganze Heilige Schrift D. Martin Lutheri. 

(The Bible. The Entire Holy Scripture of Martin Luther.) 
Luneburg, 1665. 302, 198, 160 leaves. 43.5 x 30.5 cm. 
a: Plates to leaves 32-33 

Artistically the most splendid Bible of the baroque era. 


5 i- 

The Bible in the Language of the Delawares. Cambridge, 
1680. 602 leaves. 19 x 15.5 cm. 

a: Leaf ia, Beginning of the New Testament. 

John Eliot’s Indian language Bible. 

The Electoral Library 

52. See figure 11. 

Biblia Germanico-Latina. (German-Latin Bible.) 

Wittenberg, 1565. 162 leaves. Printed on vellum. 21 x 15.5 cm. 
a: Portrait of Elector Augustus 
Personal Bible ofi Elector Augustus the Strong. 

53 - 

Matthioli, Petrus Andreas: Commentarii. 
(Commentaries.) Venice, 1554. 149 leaves. 34 x 24 cm. 
Binding from 1556, the year ofi the establishment ofi the 
Saxon State Library; with the supralibros: A(ugust) 
H(erzog) Z(u) S(achsen) K(urfiirst) 

54 - 

Katalog der Bibliothek des Kurfursten August. (Catalog 
of the Library of Elector Augustus.) 1580. 90 leaves. 

31.5 x 20.5 cm. 
a: Pages 23-24 

The handwritten catalog lists 2,354 works from all 
fields of knowledge. 

55 - 

Agricola, Georg: Bergwerkbuch (Mining Book.) 
Frankfurt am Main, 1580. 491 leaves. 31 x 22 cm. 
a: Pages 152-53 

First comprehensive treatise on the mining industry. 

56 - 

Tables on the Release of the Saxon Electoral Coin. 

Dresden, 1583. 301 leaves. 37 x 27.5 cm. 
a: Pages 70-71 

Account of Saxon mining output for 1568. 

57. See figure 12. 

Kentmann, Johannes: Krauterbuch. (Book of Herbs.) 
1563. 299 leaves. 50 x 40 cm. 
a: Leaves i46b-47a 

An early illustration of American tomato plants, 
entitled “Red Apples from the New World. ” 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


58 . 

Bartisch, Georg: Kunstbuch, darinnen ist der ganze 
griindliche Bericht des Blasensteines. (Art Book 
Containing a Thorough Report on Kidney Stones.) 

1575. 239 leaves. 31 x 22.5 cm. 
a: Leaves i35b-36a 

Manuscript of the oldest German urological text 
of scientific quality. 

59 - 

Vesalius, Andreas: De humani corporis fabrica. 

(On the Structure of the Human Body.) Basel, 1543. 

659 leaves. 43.5 x 32.5 cm. 
a: Pages 162-63 

Vesalius’s pioneering sixteenth-century atlas on anatomy. 

60. See figure 13. 

Mair, Paulus Hector: Fecht-, Ring- und Turnierbuch. 
(Book of Fencing, Wrestling, and Jousting.) Mid-sixteenth 
century. 242 leaves. 41 x 30 cm. 
a: Leaves 77b-y8a 

A treatise on fencing, wrestling, and jousting. 

61. See figure 14. 

Senftenberg, Veit Wolff von: Kriegserfindungen. 
(Military Inventions.) Second half of sixteenth century. 

173 leaves. 23 x 18.5 cm. 
a: Leaves 97b-98a 

An important treatise on the invention and 
use of weaponry. 

62. See figure 15. 

Loeneyss, Georg Engelhart: Griindlicher Bericht und 
Ordnung der Gebisse. (Thorough Report on Equestrian 
Dentistry.) 1576. 249 leaves. 51 x 39 cm. 
a: Leaves 22b-23a 

A treatise on horses, their handling, and equipage. 

63. 

Ortung der Reise von Miihlberg bis Regensburg. 

(Itinerary of the Journey from Miihlberg to Regensburg.) 
1:575. Vellum scroll. 11 x 1380 cm. 

Elector Augustus’s route for his trip to the Reichstag in 
Regensburg in the fall ofiyyy. 


64. 

Unterricht, wie man das Vaterunser beten soil. (Instruction for 
Praying the Lords Prayer) 1561. 81 leaves. Vellum. 17 x 11.5 cm. 
a: Leaves 32b-33a 

Prayer book belonging to Elector Augustus. 

65. 

Sachs, Hans: Meistergesangbuch. (Master Hymnal.) 
c. 1560. 228 leaves. 22 x 34 cm. 
a: Leaves nb-i2a 

Autograph manuscript by the greatest and most prolific 
German poet of the sixteenth century. 

66 . 

Funeral Procession of Elector August from Dresden 
to Freiberg, 14 March 1586. Folding sheet. 24 x 51 cm. 
a: Page 11 

67. See figure 16. 

Harriot, Thomas: Customs of the Savages in Virginia. 
Frankurt am Main, 1590. 66 leaves. 34 x 25 cm. 
a: Leaves 47b-48a 
The city of Secotd. 

68. See figure ly. 

Bretschneider, Daniel: Ein Buch von allerlei 
Inventionen zu Schlittenfahrten. (A Book of Various 
Inventions for Sled Travel.) Dresden, 1602. 51 leaves. 

16 x 38 cm. 

a: Leaf 36 

69. See figure 18. 

Tierhatz auf dem Altmarkt zu Dresden. (Animal Chase 
in the Old Market in Dresden.) 1609. 8 leaves. 46 x 60 cm. 
a: Leaf 2 

Pictures depicting various types of hunts staged 
at carnival time 

Fine Renaissance Bindings 

70. See figure 19. 

Division Tables, c. 1570. Part 2. 1,000 tables. 16 x 21 cm. 

71. See figure 20. 

Paul, Simon: Postilla. Magdeburg, 1572. 512 leaves. 

17 x 11 cm. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


72 . 

Fischer, Christoph: Von dem hochwiirdigen 
Abendmahl. (From the Last Supper.) Uelzen, 1575. 

211 leaves. 17 x 11 cm. 

Calf binding by Jakob Krause with Moorish 
ornamentation in gilt. 

73 - 

Peucer, Caspar: Das fiinfte Buch der Chronica Carionis 
(The Fifth Book of the Chronicles of Carion.) Dresden, 
1576. Pages 209-435, 58 leaves. 39 x 26 cm. 

Deluxe edition by Jakob Krause with the coat of arms 
of the electorate of Saxony. 

74. See figure 21. 

Betbiichlein fur allerlei Anliegen. (Small Prayer Book 
for All Occasions.) c. 1580. 131 leaves. 21 x 20 cm. 

75 - 

Miltitz, Nicol von, and Georg Rudolf Marschalk: 
Rofiarznei-Buch. (Equine Veterinary Book.) Dresden, 1589. 
225 leaves. Vellum. 33 x 23 cm. 

Gilt cordovan binding by Caspar Meuser, with 
silver clasps. 

76. 

Franz, Paul: Christliche niitzliche Fragen. (Useful 
Christian Questions.) 1590. 15 leaves, 498 pages. 18 x 12 cm. 
Painted gilt binding by Caspar Meuser, with Saxon 
and Brandenburg coats of arms. 

The Electoral Hofkapelle 
77 - 

Amann, Jost, and Georg Gartner: Fleidnischer Stamm 
des hochloblichen Hauses zu Sachsen. (The Pagan Roots 
of the Noble House of Saxony.) c. 1650. 55 leaves. 
a: Leaves 49b-5oa, portrait 
Elector Moritz (1521-53), founder of the Hofkapelle. 


78. 

Walter, Johann: Von den Zeichen des Tags ein schon 
Lied. (From the Signs of the Day a Beautiful Song.) 

Text by Erasmus Albe. 1548. Folding sheet. 18.5 x 15 cm. 
a: Pages 2-3 

Unknown composition of 1548,the founding year 
of the Hofkapelle, by Johann Walter, first cantor and 
choirmaster and a friend of Luther. 

79 - 

Bercht, Friedrich: Gemalte Aufziige. (Painted 
Processions.) Dresden, 1581. 2 leaves. Gouache painting. 

34 x 48 cm. 

The court trumpeters were the highest ranking musicians 
in Germany, since Elector August occupied the position 
of grand marshal. 

80. See figure 22. 

Bretschneider, Daniel: Contrafactur des Ringrennens 
und anderer Ritterspiele auf Christians fiirstlichem Beilager 
am 25. April Anno [15]82 in Dresden. (Contrafactum 
of the Ring Competition and Other Knightly Games at 
the Princely Consummation of Christian’s Marriage on 
April 25 of the Year [15)82 in Dresden.) Dresden, c. 1582. 

67 leaves. 25.5 x 55.5 cm. 
a: The fourth part 

81. 

Scandelli, Antonio: Gaudii Paschalis Jesu Christi 
redivivi ... relatio historica. (Historical Account of the 
Easter Joy of the Resurrected Jesus Christ.) Edited 
and published by Samuel Besler. Breslau, 1612. 22 leaves. 
30.5 x 20.5 cm. 
a: Page 5 

Posthumous edition of a work that was atypical for the 
time, by the first Italian director of the Hofkapelle. 

82. 

Pinelli, Giovanni Battista: Deutsches Magnificat. 
(German Magnificat.) Tenor part book. Dresden, 1583. 

134 leaves. 15 x 20 cm. 

A: Page 2, with a portrait of the composer 

Rare edition of the German-language compositions by 

the second Italian director of the Hofkapelle. 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 



8 3 . 

Albrici, Vincenzo: Missa in C fur 5 Singstimmen, 
Streicher, 4 Trompeten und Pauken. (Mass in C for Five 
Voices, Strings, Four Trumpets and Tympani.) Manuscript 
score. Dresden, end of seventeenth century. 42 leaves. 

31 x 20.5 cm. 
a: Pages 12-13 

At the head of the score is a notation: Sig. Vicentius 
Albrici. S(erenissimi): E(lectoris): S(axoniae): C(apellae): 
M(agister). 

84. 

Nauwach, Johann: Erster Teil Deutscher Villanellen 
mit 1, 2 und 3 Stimmen, auf die Tiorba, Laute, 

Clavicymbel und andere Instrumente gerichtet. (First Part 
of German Villanellas, with 1, 2, and 3 voices; with 
accompaniment for a theorbo, lute, harpsichord, and other 
instruments.) Dresden, 1627. 23 leaves. 28 x 18 cm. 
a: Title page 

Rarity from the earliest collections of the Music 
Department of the Saxon State Library, with presentation 
inscription to Elector Johann Georg I. 

85. 

Schutz, Heinrich: Konigs und Propheten David 
Hundertneunzehnter Psalm. (The 119th Psalm of David, 
the King and Prophet.) Manuscript part for Cantus 1; with 
printed title page. Dresden, 1671. 20 leaves. 27.5 x 19.5 cm. 
a: Title page 

A vocal score from the only source collecting the last works 
of Schutz, with notation on the title page in Schiitz’s 
own hand. 

86 . 

Bontempi, Giovanni, and Giuseppe Peranda: Drama 
oder Musikalisches Schauspiel von der Dafne. (Musical 
play on the legend of Daphne.) Manuscript fair copy. 
Dresden, 1671-72. 116 leaves. 23.5 x 34 cm. 
a: Title page 

Source for the opera Daphne. 


87. 

Opera-Ballett von dem Judicio Paridis und der Helena 
Raub. (Opera Ballet of the Judgment of Paris and the 
Rape of Helen.) Dresden, 1679. 18 leaves, 10 engravings. 

30 x 19 cm. 

a: Stage view 

Text edition with eight scene designs and two 
interior views of the opera house erected by Wolf Caspar 
von Klengel. 

88 . 

Dedekind, Constantin Christian: Aelbianische 
Musenlust, in unterschiedlicher beriihmter Poeten 
auserlesenen, mit anmutigen Melodien beseelten, Lust-, 
Ehren-, Zucht- und Tugendliedern. (Albion Fancy of 
the Muses, in Songs of Merriment, Honor, Discipline 
and Virtue. Selected from Various Famous Poets and 
Animated by Charming Melodies.) Dresden, 1657. 

205 leaves. 15.5 x 18.5 cm. 
a: Engraved title page 

Presumably the only complete copy of the collected songs of 
the Dresden virtuoso concertmaster, Constantin Dedekind. 

Twilight of a Century 

89. See figure 23. 

Collection of Portraits of the Counts of Saxony. 
Seventeenth century. 52 miniatures on vellum. 47 x 29 cm. 
a: Leaf 48 

90. 

de Wit, Frederik: Karte von Deutschland. (Map of 
Germany.) c. 1680. Silk. Hand-colored print. 62 x 70 cm. 

91 - 

Old Dresden and Dresden with the Elbe Bridge, c. 1650. 
Engraving. 58 x 82 cm. 

92. 

Weck, Anton: Der Kurfurstlichen sachsischen Residenz 
und Hauptfestung Dresden Beschreibung und Vorstellung. 
(Description and View of the Residence of the Elector 
of Saxony and the Main Fortress of Dresden.) Nuremberg, 
1680. 552 pages, 8 leaves. 45 x 41.5 cm. 
a: Plate 12 

The Kurfiirstliche Bibliothek (Electoral Library) was 
located here from 1556 until the castle fire ofiyoi. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


93 - 

Zschimmer, Gabriel: Durchlauchtigste Zusammenkunft. 
(The Most Serene Meeting.) Nuremberg, 1680. Engraving. 
37 x 120 cm. 

a: Plate 2, page 20 

Procession of citizens through Wilsdrujfer Street, from 
the Old Marketplace to Wilis Gate in Dresden. 

94. 

Schein, Johann Hermann: Allegrezza sprirituale ... auf 
das Jubelfest der Evangelischen Lutherischen Kirchen. Mit 
acht Stimmen samt Generalbass. Stimme Basso continuo. 
(Allegrezza spirituale ... at the Jubilee Celebration of 
the Protestant Lutheran Churches. In eight vocal parts 
with bass continuo. Bass continuo part.) Leipzig, 1617. 

86 leaves. 31 x 20 cm. 
a: Title page 

Celebratory motet by the cantor of the St. Thomas 
Church of Leipzig, on the hundredth anniversary of the 
circulation of Luther’s theses in Wittenberg. 

95 - a,b 

Knupfer, Sebastian: Wer ist der, so von Edom kommt. 
Dialogus Festo Paschatos accommodatus, a 15, 20, 30 
vocibus. (Who Is He Who Comes from Edom. Dialogue 
Suited for an Easter Celebration, for 15, 20, 30 voices.) 
Copyist score by Samuel Jacobi. 1676. 14 leaves. 

31.5 x 19.5 cm. 

a: Cover and page 1 

An important work by the cantor of the St. Thomas 
Church in a seventeenth-century copyist manuscript. 

96. 

Schelle, Johann: Ich lebe und ihr sollt auch leben. 
Geistliches Konzert fur Basso solo und Instrumente. 10 
Stimmen, geschrieben v. Samuel Jacobi. (I Live and You 
Shall Also Live. Sacred Concert for Solo Bass and 
Instruments. Ten parts; written by Samuel Jacobi.) 
Grimma, last quarter of seventeenth century, n leaves. 

20 x 16.5 cm. 

a: All vocals broken down into parts 
The works of Cantor Johann Schelle of the St. Thomas 
Church in Leipzig survive today only in the Saxon 
State Library. 


97 - 

Kuhnau, Johann: Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan. 
Kirchenkantate fur Soli, Chor und Instrumente. 
Stimmenmaterial von der Hand Johann Gottfried Schichts. 
27 Stimmen. (Whatever God Does Is Well Done. Church 
Cantata for Solo, Choir, and Instruments. Vocal material 
from the hand of Johann Gottfried Schicht. 27 parts.) 

End of eighteenth to beginning of nineteenth century. 

33 leaves. 31 x 23 cm. 

a: All vocals broken down into parts 
A work by Kuhnau, J. S. Bach’s predecessor, transcribed 
by Bach’s fifth successor, Schicht. 

98. 

Corpus iuris Saxonici. (Electoral Saxon Ordinances, 
Constitutions, Mandates, Patents, and Rights.) Dresden, 
1673. 34 x 22.5 cm. 

A: Title page 

The first printed collection of the laws of the 
state of Saxony. 

99. 

Taglich neu einlaufende Kriegs- und Welthandel. (Daily 
New Incoming Military and Global Transactions.) Leipzig, 
1660. 1,392 pages, 8 leaves. 20 x 18.5 cm. 
a: Pages 604-605 

First year’s issues of the oldest German daily newspaper. 

100. 

Acta eruditorum. (Activities of Scholars.) Year 1. Leipzig, 
1682. 402 pages, 6 leaves. 22 x 17 cm. 
a: Pages 160-61 

First year’s issues of the oldest German scholarly journal. 

101. 

Von SchieEen und Feuerwerk (Biichsenmeisterei). 

(On Shooting and Fireworks.) Seventeenth century. 

140 pages, 63 leaves. 20 x 18.5 cm. 
a: Plate 7 

The production of gunpowder. 

102. 

Propheten, Apokryphen und Neues Testament. Ubersetzt 
von Martin Luther. (Prophets, Apocrypha, and New 
Testament. Translated by Martin Luther.) Wittenberg, 

1572. 470 leaves. 41 x 29 cm. 

The Bible of Elector Johann Georg I (ruled 1611-56), 
with chased and fire-gilded brass binding. 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


no. 


103. See figure 24. 

Biblia. Ubersetzt von Martin Luther. (The Bible. 
Translated by Martin Luther.) Nuremberg, 1652. 416 pages, 
90 leaves. 48 x 35 cm. 

A: Cover 

Bible of Elector Moritz of Sachsen-Zeitz, 
with his coat of arms. 

104. 

Das unschuldige Leiden ... Jesu Christi. (The Innocent 
Suffering ... of Jesus Christ.) Dresden, 1653. 154 leaves. 
Vellum. 15.5 x 13 cm. 
a: Leaves 

Prayer book of Elector fohann Georg I. 

The Augustan Era 

105. 

GroKes vollstandiges Universal-Lexikon. (Great Complete 
Universal Dictionary.) Vol. 3. Halle, Leipzig, 1733. 2,000 
columns, 7 leaves. 35 x 23 cm. 

a: Portrait of Friedrich August I 

106. 

Biblia sacra. (Sacred Bible.) Nuremberg, 1714. 520 pages, 

12 leaves. 30 x 22 cm. 

Binding with the coat of arms of August the Strong, 

Polish king and elector of Saxony. 

107. 

Friedrich August I, Elector of Saxony and King 
of Poland: Letter to Count-Palatine of Livonia Karlsbad, 
12 June 1717. 2 leaves. 23 x 17.5 cm. 

To majordomo fosefKos, tutor of the crown prince. 

108. See figure 24. 

Adas Royal. Vol. 1. Amsterdam, 1707. 3, 73 leaves. 65 x 55 cm. 

109. See figure 26. 

Poppelmann, Matthaus Daniel: Entwurf fur einen 
Zwingerpavillon. (Draft for a Zwinger pavilion.) Dresden, 
1712-13. Colored sketch. 41.5 x 28 cm. 


Poppelmann, Matthaus Daniel: Ehrentempel zum Fest 
des 49. Geburtstages Friedrich August I. (Pantheon for the 
Festival of the Forty-ninth Birthday of Friedrich August I.) 
Dresden, 1718. Colored drawing. 45 x 41.5 cm. 

hi. 

Costume Figures for a Masquerade. Eighteenth century. 

43 leaves. 53 x 38 cm. 
a: Plates 14, 15 

112. 

Heinichen, Johann David: Flavio Crispo. Dramma per 
musica in 3. Atti, Band 3. Abschrift (unvollendet). (Flavio 
Crispo. Musical drama in three acts, Vol. 3. Copyists manu¬ 
script (incomplete).) Dresden, 1720. 84 leaves. 26 x 31 cm. 
a: Pages 134-13 5 

Unique transmission of the last opera by the Dresden 
court musical director. 

113. 

Vivaldi, Antonio: Concerto fatto per il M[aestr]o 
Pisendel. (Concerto composed for M[aestr]o Pisendel). 
Autograph score with ornamental sketches by Pisendel. 
Venice and Dresden, between 1717 and 1730. 12 leaves. 

24 x 32.5 cm. 

A: Pages 10, 11, 11a 

Impressive testimony to the creative collaboration between 
Vivaldi and the Dresden musical director Pisendel. 

114. 

Pisendel, Johann Georg: First Movement of a Violin 
Concerto, with corrections in Vivaldi’s Hand. Autograph 
score. Venice, c. 1717. 5 leaves. 23 x 31.5 cm. 
a: Page 6 

Clear evidence that Pisendel was a student of Vivaldi. 

HJ. 

Zelenka, Jan Dismas: Requiem fur Friedrich August I. 
von Sachsen und Polen. (Requiem for Frederik Augustus I 
of Saxony and Poland.) Autograph score. Dresden, 1733. 

7 leaves (1 fascicle). 35.5 x 23.5 cm. 
a: Page 1 

Splendid documentation of the abilities of the Hofkapelle 
at that time. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


121. 


n6. 

Weiss, Silvius Leopold: Lautenkompositionen in 
franzdsischer Tabulaturschrift. (Compositions for Lute 
in French Tablature.) Vol. 6. Title in composer’s hand. 

1731. 35 leaves. 25 x 33 cm. 
a: Pages 8 and 9 

Autograph manuscript of the most significant 
lutist of the time. 

117. See figure 2y. 

Bach, Johann Sebastian: Missa (h moll: Kyrie und 
Gloria). Originaler Stimmensatz. (Mass in B Minor: Kyrie 
and Gloria. Original Vocal Part.) Leipzig, 1733. 2 leaves. 

40 x 30 cm. 

a: Bass voice (composer’s autograph) 

Manuscript score. 

118. 

Harrer, Johann Gottlieb: Missa in D. (Mass in D.) 
Autograph score. Dresden, 1738. 88 leaves. 33.5 x 16.5 cm. 
a: Pages 156-157, with corrections by Zelenka 
Harrer was Bach’s successor as cantor of the St. Thomas 
Church in Leipzig, and was previously in the service 
of Count Briihl in Dresden. 

119. 

Hasse, Johann Adolf: Ipermestra. Dramma per musica 
in 3 Atti. (Ipermestra. Musical drama in three acts.) Text 
by Pietro Metastasio. Copy of the score with autograph 
additions and corrections. Dresden, c. 1745-50. 177 leaves. 
22.5 x 31 cm. 

a: Pages 122-123 

The unperformed intermediate version between the 1744 
Vienna performance and the 1751 Dresden performance. 

120. 

Maria Antonia Walpurgis, Electoress of Saxony: 

II Trionfo della fedelta. Dramma per musica in 3 Atti. 

(The Triumph of Fidelity. Musical drama in three acts.) 
Lyrics by the composer. 

a) Copyist’s score. Vol. 2. Dresden, mid-eighteenth century. 
64 leaves. 23 x 30.5 cm. 

b) Cadenza to an aria of the second act, for soprano 
and oboe (autograph). Dresden, mid-eighteenth century. 

2 leaves. 24 x 32 cm. 

a: Pages 106-107; page 2 

Author’s copy with additions in her own hand. 


Bellotto, Bernardo (Canaletto): Ffofkirche. (Court 
Church.) Eighteenth century. Engraving. 40 x 50 cm. 

122. 

Bellotto, Bernardo (Canaletto): Zwingerhof (Zwinger 
Court.) Eighteenth century. Engraving. 40 x 50 cm. 

View of the pavilions where the Electoral Library 
was located from 1728 to 1786. 

123. See figure 28. 

Merian, Maria Sibylla: Metamorphosis insectorum 
Surinamensium. (Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam.) 
Amsterdam, 1705. 2, 60 pages, 60 plates. 58 x 44 cm. 
a: Figure 46 

124. 

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von: Theodicaea. 
Amsterdam, 1726. 552 pages. 18 x 11 cm. 
a: Title page 

Chief work of this philosopher and versatile scholar 
who was born in Leipzig. 

125. 

Moritz, Count of Saxony: Des reveries. (Musings.) 

1732. 319 pages, 85 plates. 43 x 29 cm. 
a: Page 100, plate 40 

Military compendium by Count Moritz of Saxony, 
son of August the Strong and Countess Aurora 
of Konigsmark. 

126. 

Barre, R: Histoire general e d’Allemagne. (General 
Flistory of Germany.). Vol. 8. Paris, 1748. Pages 785-1128, 
pages 1-344, 2 4 leaves. 30 x 23.5 cm. 
a: v. 8, cover 

Morocco binding with the supralibros of Friedrich 
August II, Polish king and elector of Saxony (1696—1763). 

127. 

Heraldic Description of the Coat of Arms of the Elector of 
Saxony. Eighteenth century. 13 plates, 27 leaves. 21 x 17.5 cm. 
a: Leaf ib 

Gouache drawing and written description. 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


128. 

Bunau, Heinrich von: Deutsche Kaiser- und 
Reichshistorie. (History of the German Emperors and 
of the German Empire.) Vol. i. Leipzig, 1728. 

925 pages, 28 leaves. 28 x 21 cm. 
a: Frontispiece, title page 
Reference work on German history, of which four 
volumes were published. 

129. 

Pontas, Johannes: Dictionarium. (Dictionary.) Vol. 1. 
Luxemburg, 1731. 546 pages, 8 leaves. 42 x 28 cm. 
a: Cover, gilt-embossed leather 
Binding with supralibros of Count Heinrich von 
Bunau. His comprehensive library of 42,000 volumes 
was incorporated into the electoral collection in 1764. 

130. 

Grofles vollstandiges Universal-Lexikon (Great Complete 
Universal Encyclopedia.) Vol. 27. Leipzig, Halle, 1741. 

5 leaves, 2,246 columns. 35 x 23 cm. 
a: Frontispiece, title page 
Oldest modern encyclopedia of Germany, in 68 
volumes. On the engraved title page: the Saxon Prime 
Minister, Count Heinrich von Briihl, whose collection 
of62,000 volumes was purchased for the electoral 
collection in 1768. 

131. 

Pontas, Johannes: Dictionarium. (Dictionary.) Vol. 2. 
Venice, 1744. 711 pages. 36 x 25 cm. (closed.) 
a: Cover 

Supralibros of Count Heinrich von Briihl. 

132. 

Seutter, Matthias: Stadtplan von Dresden. (City 
Map of Dresden.) 1755. Colored engraving. 61 x 75 cm. 
The fortress-like character of both parts of the city 
can be seen. 

133 - 

Portrait of Graf Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. 1755. 
Engraving. 23 x 16 cm. 

Founder of the Moravian Church. 


134. 

Zinzendorf, Graf Nikolaus Ludwig von: 

Autograph manuscript of his “Theologische Bedenken.” 
(Theological Reflections.) Herrnhut, 13 January 1733. 

2 leaves. 19 x 31.5 cm. 

Part of the original manuscript in Zinzendorfs own hand. 

135 - 

Veith, J. R: Herrnhut. Ansicht von Siiden. (Herrnhut. 
View from the South.) End of eighteenth century. 
Watercolor drawing. 59 x 70 cm. 

Herrnhut is the location where the defunct Moravian 
religion was revived. 

136. 

The Daily Recitations of the Moravian Church for the 
Year 1776. Barby, 1775. 76 leaves. 18 x 11 cm. 

First edition of the Moravians’ recitations with 
instructional texts. 

The Frauenkirche 
137 - 

Dresden. Neumarkt with the Frauenkirche. Second half 
of eighteenth century. Watercolor, pen and ink drawing. 

72 x 51 cm. 

138. See figure 29. 

Plans et elevations des differentes eglises. (Plans and 
Elevations of Various Churches.) First half of eighteenth 
century. Colored pen and ink drawing. 48 x 56 cm. 

Original cross-sectional drawing of the Frauenkirche. 

139. See figure 40. 

Wagner, Richard: Das Liebesmahl der Apostel. Biblische 
Szene fur Mannerstimmen und grofles Orchester. (The 
Love Feast of the Apostles. Biblical Scene for Male Voices 
and Large Orchestra.) Autograph score. Dresden, 1843. 

31 leaves. 34 x 27 cm. 
a: Pages 22-23 
Original score. 

140. 

Ringing of the Frauenkirche Bells in Dresden. Original 
recording. Direct cut on Decelith. Cassette recording 
in exhibit. Dresden, c. 1940. Diameter 30 cm. 

Recording of the bells destroyed in 1947. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


I4i- See figure 31. 

Reinhold, Friedrich Johann Christian: Uniformen 
der kurfurstlich sachsischen Armee. (Uniforms of the Army 
of the Electorate of Saxony.) 1791. 31 leaves. 15.4 x 23 cm. 
a: Leaf 15 (26) 

Illustrations of the Elector’s army. 

142. 

Dresden. Panoramic View from the Cupola of the 
Frauenkirche. 1824. Colored lithograph. 62 x 60 cm. 

“ Fish-eye ” view of Dresden. 

The Age of Goethe 

143. See figure 32. 

Dresden. View of the City from the Southwest. End 
of eighteenth century. Colored engraving. 66 x 81 cm. 

144. See figure 33. 

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim: Gedanken iiber die 
Nachahmung der griechischen Werke. (Thoughts on the 
Imitation of Greek Works.) Friedrichstadt near Dresden, 
1755. 40 pages, 4 leaves. 25 x 21.5 cm. 
a: Title page 

A pioneering essay in the establishment of modern 
scientific archaeology and art history. 

145 - 

Portrait of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-89). 
c. 1760. Engraving. 25 x 19.5 cm. 

Founder of modern aesthetics. 

146. 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: Die Leiden des j ungen 
Werthers. (The Sorrows of Young Werther.) Leipzig, 1774. 
224 pages. 16.5 x 9.5 cm. 
a: Title page 

An eighteenth-century best seller. This is the rare 
anonymously issued first edition. 

147. See figure 34. 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: Letter to Johann 
Gottlob von Quandt. Weimar, 9 June 1831. 2 leaves, 
wrapper. 25.5 x 21 cm. 

Regarding paintings coming from Dresden to Weimar. 


148. 

Dresden. Japanese Palace. 1795. Watercolor drawing. 

55 x 80 cm. 

Location of the Royal Library from iy86 to 1943, built by 
the famous architect Matthaus Daniel Poppelmann. 

149. 

Schiller, Friedrich von: Die Rauber. (The Robbers.) 
Leipzig, 1781. Collection: 32, 222, 130, 96, 108, 127 pages. 
18 x 11 cm. 

a: Title page 

The most significant drama of the Sturm und Drang 
period in eighteenth-century German literature. 

150. 

Schiller, Friedrich von: Autograph Letter to Christian 
Korner. Rudolstadt, 1 September 1788. 2 leaves. 

This letter from Schiller to Korner discusses personal 
and aesthetic matters. 

151. 

Hiller, Johann Adam: Die Liebe auf dem Lande. 
Singspiel in 3 Akten. (Love in the Country. Singspiel in 
three acts.) Autograph score, fair copy. Leipzig, c. 1768. 

125 leaves. 20 x 26 cm. 
a: Pages 28-29 

Hiller was the cantor of the St. Thomas Church 
in Leipzig, a versatile musical organizer and writer 
on musical subjects, known as the representative 
of the middle German Singspiel. 

152. 

Naumann, Johann Gottlieb: Gustaf Wasa. Tragisk 
opera i 3 acter (Gustaf Vasa. Tragic opera in three acts.) 
Autograph score. Vol. 2. Stockholm, 1782-83. 

97 leaves. 24.5 x 34 cm. 
a: Page 185 

This work, commissioned for the musical 
director of the Saxon court, is still regarded as the 
Swedish national opera. 


101. 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


153 - 

Gli Amanti folletti. Dramma buffo in due Atti. (The Lover 
Imps. Comic opera in two acts.) Libretto. Fair copy, with 
autograph corrections by Prince Anton of Saxony. Dresden, 
c. 1793. 41 leaves. 24.5 x 18 cm. 
a: Leaves I2b-i3a 

This opera, performed in Dresden, was compiled from 
various works by Mozart. 

154. 

Paer, Ferdinando: L’Amante servitor. Dramma giocoso 
per musica in 2 atti. (The Servant Lover. Comic opera 
in two acts.) Autograph score of the opening symphony. 
Venice, 1796 (or Dresden, after 1801). 20 leaves. 

21.5 x 30 cm. 
a: Page 1 

Napoleon lured the Dresden music director 
to Paris in 1807. 

155 - 

Ebert, Friedrich Adolf: The First Subject Catalog 
“Musik” of the Royal Public Library in Dresden. 

Autograph fair copy. Dresden, 1816. 89 leaves. 33.5 x 21 cm. 
a: Pages 14-15 

The first catalog “Musik” of the Royal Public Library 
was established. 

156. 

Mersenne, Martin: Harmonie universelle, contenant 
la theorie et la pratique de la musique. (Universal 
Harmony, Containing the Theory and Practice of Music.) 
Paris, 1636-37. 782 pages, 2 leaves. 36 x 23 cm. 
a: Main title and table of contents 
One of the earliest acquisitions of the Music Department; 
with detailed table of contents by Chief Librarian 
Friedrich Adolf Ebert. 

Romanticism in Dresden 
157 - 

Tibullus, Albius: Elegiarum libri quatuor. (Four Books 
of Elegies.) Venice, 1520. 179 leaves. 31 x 22 cm. 
a: Cover 

Binding with supralibros of Elector Friedrich August III 
(1750—1827), who after 1806 was King Friedrich August I 
of Saxony. 


158. 

Schlofi Pillnitz. (Pillnitz Castle.) c. 1800. Colored 
engraving. 37 x 47 cm. 

Summer residence of the House ofWettin since the 
eighteenth century. 

159. See figure 55. 

Plantae selectae vivis coloribus depictae. (Selected Plants 
Shown in True-to-Life Colors.) Centuria 1. 1785-95. 

100 leaves. 53 x 40 cm. 

A: Plate 22 

One of hundreds of plants grown st Pillnitz castle. 

160. 

Portrait of Carl Maria von Weber. 1823. Lithograph. 

35 x 23 cm. 

Weber’s works inspired the Romantic movement 
in German opera. 

161. 

Weber, Carl Marla von: Jubel-Ouverture. Zur Feier des 
50 jahrigen Regierungsantritts Sr. Maj. des Konigs von 
Sachsen d. 20. September 1818 (Overture of Jubilation. For 
the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Reign 
of His Majesty the King of Saxony on 20 September 1818.) 
Autograph score. 1818. 14 leaves. 23.5 x 32.5 cm. 

A: Title page 

This festive orchestral work contains the melody “God 
Save the King” near the end. 

162. 

Morlacci, Francesco: Elegia (fur Klavier). (Elegies for 
Piano.) Manuscript. Dresden, 1840. 2 leaves. 31.5 x 23.5 cm. 
a: Pages 2—3 

Only known piano composition by the last Italian court 
musical director. 

163. 

Becker, Wilhelm Gottlieb: Das Seifersdorfer Tal. 

(The Seifersdorf Valley.) Dresden, 1792. 176 pages, 4 leaves. 
26 x 20 cm. 

a: Pages 18-19 

Temple of the Muses, with a bust of the poet Wieland. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 


164. 

Wieland, Christoph Martin: Oberon. Weimar, 1781. 

311 pages. 18.5 x 11.5 cm. 

A: Flyleaf 

With dedicatory poem by Wieland (1/33—1813) 
to Countess Christina von Briihl (1/36-1816), creator 
of the Seifersdorf nature trail. 

165. 

Schlegel, August Wilhelm: Autograph translation 
of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. c. 1805. 54 leaves. 

23 x 18.5 cm. 

a: Leaves 39b-4oa 

Part of the extensive written legacy left by Schlegel, the 
important poet and translator of the German Romantic 
movement. 

1 66. 

Athenaeum. Edited by August Wilhelm Schlegel and 
Friedrich Schlegel. Vol. 1. Berlin, 1798. iv, 177, 178 pages. 

21 x 12.5 cm. 
a: Title page 

The journal of the early German Romantic movement. 

167. 

Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg): Schriften. 
(Works.) Edited by Friedrich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck. 
Berlin, 1802. 2 vols. xii, 338 p.; 552 p. 15.5 x 10 cm. 

A: Title page 

Novalis (1//2-1801) is the most significant poet 
of the German Romantic period. 

168. 

Phobus. (Phoebus.) Edited by FFeinrich von Kleist and 
A. FI. Muller. Vol. 1. Dresden, 1808. First through twelfth 
numbers, with 7 plates. 23 x 19 cm. 

a: Title page and frontispiece (February). 

A Dresden journal of the Romantic period. 

169. 

Konigstein, Pfafifenstein, and Lilienstein Fortresses, c. 1825. 
Hand-colored etching. 48 x 63 cm. 

This area, with its unique landscape, is situated along 
the Elbe River near Dresden. 


170. 

Meissen. View with the Elbe Bridge and the Albrecht 
Castle. 1808. Hand-colored etching. 58 x 69 cm. 

Secular and religious center of the margraviate of Meissen 
during the Middle Ages and world-renowned center 
for the manufacture of Meissen porcelain. 

171 - 

Portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). 1855. 
Lithograph. 40 x 32.5 cm. 

This great, if enigmatic, German philosopher later 
influenced Nietzche and Freud. 

172. 

Schopenhauer, Arthur: Die Welt als Wille und 
Vorstellung. (The World as Will and Idea.) Leipzig, 1819. 
725 pages. 19.5 x 11.5 cm. 
a: Title page. 

The most important work by the eminent German 
philosopher written during his stay in Dresden. 

173 - 

Graenicher, J. A.: Kostiime in Sachsen. (Traditional 
Dress in Saxony.) c. 1805. 18 plates, 5 leaves. 32 x 22 cm. 

A: Plate 7 

Depiction of a Wendish peasant in festive dress, a member 
of a Slavic minority that still lives in Saxony. 

174. See figure 36. 

Family Album of Johann Gottlieb Schwender. 1795-1810. 
134 leaves. 12.5 x 22 cm. 
a: Leaves 56b-57a 

View of Dresden from the Elbe Bridge. 

175 - 

Family Album of Wilhelm Ferdinand Teich. Dresden, 
1809-24. 776 leaves. 11.5 x 40 cm. 

a: Leaves 3ob-3ia, watercolor and script 
Keeping Stammbiicher (family albums), customary 
since the sixteenth century, became very common around 
1800 as an expression of the cult of friendship. 


Appendix: Exhibit Checklist 


104 - 


176. See figure 37. 

Rost, G. E.: Trachten der Berg- und Hiittenleute im 
Konigreich Sachsen. (Traditional Dress of the Mining and 
Metallurgical Workers in the Kingdom of Saxony.) c. 1830. 
2 leaves, colored engravings. 39 x 31 cm. 
a: Leaves 1763-176!) 

Life and costumes of mine workers. 

177. 

Dresden. View from the South, c. 1820. Colored 
engraving. 43 x 56 cm. 

178. See figure 48. 

Schumann, Robert: Des Sennen Abschied. (Senn’s 
Farewell.) Lyrics by Friedrich Schiller. No. 22 from 
Songs for the Young, Opus 79. Autograph. Dresden, 
undated. 1 leaf. 27 x 19.5 cm. 

A testimony to Schumanns creativity but also 
a historical account. 

179. See figure 99. 

Brahms, Johannes: An ein Veilchen. Text von Ludwig 
Holty. Liedfiiir eine Singstimme und Klavier, op. 49,2. 

(To a Violet. Lyrics by Ludwig Holty. Song for Voice and 
Piano, opus 49.2.) Autograph fair copy. Before 1872. 

2 leaves. 21.5 x 29 cm. 

From a personal album kept by the Schumann family. 

180. 

Richter, Adrian Ludwig: Autograph Letter to 
Hugo Biirkner. Loschwitz, 4 July 1864. 2 leaves, wrapper. 

22 x 14.5 cm. 

Richter (1804—84), who lived most of his life in Dresden, 
was an important German Romantic painter. 

181. 

Richter, Adrian Ludwig: Der Sonntag in Bildern. 
(Sunday in Pictures.) Dresden, 1861. 10 plates. 35 x 27.5 cm. 
A: “Visit to the Country” 

From Faraway Lands 

182. See figure 40. 

Falnameh. Persia. Late sixteenth century. 103 pages. 

68 x 51 cm. 

a: Pages 73-74 
“Muhammad splits the moon. ” 


183. 

Prayer to the Angels Fanuel and Michael. Ethiopia, 
eighteenth century. Vellum scroll. 40 x 13 cm. 

Ethiopian prayer scroll. 

184. 

Tarba-Tzimbo. Kalmuck manuscript. Eighteenth century. 
105 leaves. 42 x 16.5 cm. 

Copy of a Buddhist manuscript. 

185. 

Buddhist Legends. Japan, nineteenth century. 24 leaves. 
23.5 x 17.5 cm. 

Manuscript in the Hiragana syllabary. 

18 6 . 

Palmleaf Book. Java. 65 leaves. 25 x 43 cm. 

Inscribed palm leaf and root. 

187. 

Astrological Almanach. China, nineteenth century. 

59 leaves. 20.5 x 22 cm. 

“The standard work fit for a hundred purposes. ” 

188. 

After Zacharais Wehme. A Portrait of Elector Augustus. 
1586. Oil on canvas. 

A copy from the end of the nineteenth century of an 
original portrait of1986, by Zacharais Wehme (1998-1606). 

189. 

Theobald von Oer: Winckelmann in der Nothnitzer 
Bibliothek. (Winckelmann in the Nothnitz Library.) 1874. 
Oil on canvas. 

An idealized group portrait, showing the archaeologist- 
art historian Johann Winckelmann discoursing on an 
antique head before a group of great figures such as 
Lessing and Canaletto, 1894. Depicted are Winckelmanns 
friends and contemporaries, who were never together in 
Nothnitz. From left to right: Archinto, Biinau, Francke, 
Algarotti, Rabener, Lessing, Winckelmann, Hagedorn, 
Oeser, Heyne, Lippert, Canaletto, and Dietrich. 


Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 











Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library 



Front Cover: Christian Gottlieb Hammer, View of Dresden 
from the Southwest, late eighteenth century. Ill. 32. 

Back Cover (top to bottom): Thomas Harriot, Customs 
of the Savages in Virginia, 1590, Ill. 16; Georg Bahr, original 
cross-sectional drawing of the Frauenkirche, first half 
of the eighteenth century, Ill. 29; Johann Sebastian Bach, 
Mass in b Minor: Kyrie and Gloria, 1733, Ill. 27. 


The Saxon State Library, which was established 
by Prince Elector August of Saxony in 1556, 
was for hundreds of years the leading library 
for the humanities and social sciences in 
German-speaking Europe. As Saxony—and 
with it the city of Dresden—was incorporated 
into the Soviet bloc in 1945, the collections 
of the Saxon State Library became inaccessible 
to two generations. On the occasion of 
the four hundred fortieth anniversary of the 
founding of the Saxon State Library, 
the Library of Congress is pleased to join in 
presenting a selection of treasures from Dresden, 
focusing on Saxony’s rich historical record 
and valuable literary heritage. This beautifully 
illustrated book is a companion to this 
remarkable exhibition and focuses on 
a full range of manuscripts, incunabula, books, 
music manuscripts, photographs, maps, 
and paintings from the collections of the Saxon 
State Library, most of which have never been 
exhibited outside of Germany. 






ISBN 0-8444-0925-1 


9 780844 409252 


90000 
























































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